Words'nTone

“Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.  This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.  Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child.  While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

“In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.  And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.  But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

    Glory to God in the highest,
       And on earth peace among men with
       whom He is pleased.

“When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, ‘Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger.  When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child.  And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds.  But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.

“The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them” (Luke 2).

“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.”

“The highest American good is more than the struggle over who gets what, when, and how. Politics has a community and justice dimension as well as a power dimension… If public opinion were not controlled by public philosophy, [Lippmann] argued, it would rarely be in the public interest. While it could truly express the voice of shifting voting groups, it must not be taken as the final verdict on a national issue. It was only the beginning of the argument” ~ Os Guinness, American Hour, 154-155

52. Fifty-two. FIFTY-TWO! Yes, that’s right. I was born in 1957, fifty-two years ago today. It creeps along, sometimes very unnoticed. This march of time thing. Everyone seems to have issues with age. I don’t feel 52, but it does direct my thinking in two directions. I really don’t know what others think about as the big Five O hits, but since turning 50 two years ago now, mostly I think about the time I have left to watch my daughter grow and learn and take on the world. When my age comes into mind, I spend my time thinking about what time I have left to see what happens to my daughter, and of course my step kids. Men in my blood tend to make it into their mid-70s, so I have 24-to-26 years left, and I wonder what will my daughter be doing, what will she have accomplished and be doing with her life when she is 42? What will my step-kids be doing with their lives? That’s one thing. The other is how will I be riding out on these 25 or so years? What little time to accomplish all the things I’d actually like to be doing. Not that I don’t love what I am doing now, but as my kids head to college and its only Lisa, my wife, and I, what can I do in those 25 years to make a difference…change something, make something better, accomplish my long time wishes (which I should post some time in the bear future—maybe when I am 53)? Thanks, mom, for making sure I entered into adulthood in tack. I hope to do the same for my daughter. Although I don’t feel I have been left out of history or the march of time has sped by and I have’t done anything (I have, thankfully), I certainly realize that time and age doesn’t care what your dreams or desires are; nor do they care that you are slothful or diligent—they marches on. Fifty-two years comes no matter what, whether you are accomplishing your possibilities or not. Today at 52, I am thinking about my kids’ possibilities and where they will be in 25 years…and what can I do with these years as well.

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 my profession within the social services and social action world, I have been identified as the “good republican.” This is mostly so because I work and argue on behalf of social action, social programs and safety net provisions for the economically vulnerable and poor among us in our communities—and do it rather well.  And yet, I am conservative and tend to vote republican at the State and Federal level and tend to be rather hawkish regarding the military, and advocate an originalist approach to understanding the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.  (The nuanced and progressive approach is eisegesis, a reading into the text, and more like making ammendments without going through the constitutionally established process of having the States vote on the ammendment—tricky I say.) Mostly I consider myself a politically conservative person because of these tendencies, but my social leanings are mostly libertarian.  And as for my views on social action and the poor, most would say my leanings are liberal, however, I’d beg to say why such a designation—probably because it is held mostly by those who are politically liberal.  So I am accused of being liberal, too.  The number of people who hold or act on a principle or view (or worldview) determines such a principle or view is defined by the larger group?  Who made that rule?  I think I am a Christian who thinks christianly about the poor and poverty.

But I know…since conservatives believe in limited government that implies that the government should not be involved or utilize public funds to pay for or support social service programs; thus, those who advocate social service programs supported by the government are liberal, not conservative.  But yet, it is degree—almost everyone believes the government has “some” role in providing a social services safety-net.  But, should that line of too little or too much, too socialist/liberal or too capitalist/conservative be drawn in the Christian community.  Now I agree that “line” could and should be debated, but as my recent paper on “Idolatry and Poverty” pointed out that many of the non-poor conservatives seem to think they “did it on their own” without the government—which is simply not true (read the paper!).  So in the end its not limited government, but who gets the benefits of limited government and when and how.  This is duplicitous.

Ah, but this leads me to my new found independence and some conclusions I have drawn from my recent research and my political involvement and observations over the last twenty years.  Not everything makes it into a paper—so I’d like to post a thread of the gemera, the leftovers, some thoughts and thinking on a few areas.

First I’d like to unveil my decision to change political parties, well, really to move from being a Republican in party name and affiliation to being an Independent with no party affiliation (My renewed independence).  Then a series of observations that review how the policies and rhetoric of political parties and talking-heads can have the opposite effects on desired outcomes: Second, Low taxes almost always means more revenue into the government.

Then a post where I talk about a grave concern I have, namely Liberal Extreme and Undisciplined Spending on Social Programs Pave the Way for Zero-lining Important Social Service Programs by Conservatives and a post on Populist Rhetoric Favoring the Poor over the Rich and the Government over the Private Sector Hurts the Poor in the End.  And finally in this thread, Political Power-grabbing that Claims Attachment to the Poor Never Works for the Poor, but Secures the Establishment Wealthy.  I might not curry favor with some of my colleagues, nor make friends among my more conservative associations.  But, my aim is not to be liked or loved, or even to gain power in any sense of the word.  My goal is to maintain a Christian persepective on the issues of poverty, advocate on behalf of the poor, and attempt to be faithful in my obedience to God’s Word as much as I possibly can, particularly in how I express my political and social views as they relate to those living with the affects of poverty.

In the next post in this thread (My renewed independence), I will explain some conclusions I drew on a personal level.

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes—and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The prohibition against stealing and coveting are thus safeguards in behalf of the primary commandment, the love of God alone, as much as they are safeguards in behalf of the neighbor’s property” [Patrick Miller, an essay, Property and Possession in Light of Ten Commandments, p 48 in a compendium called Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life].

“The acquisition of excessive wealth as it arises out of coveting and stealing is indeed a neighbor issue, but it is fundamentally a matter of the fear of God and the sole reliance on the Lord for the provision of life” [Miller, p 49].

A recent sermon on the 10th commandment, Thou shall not covet, emphasized the sin of wanting what others have. No mention was made of coveting what we already have that has already been coveted and has stolen the economic means for other people’s well-being—which by the way is actually the text where the command is found (Exodus 20:17; cf. Deuteronomy 5:21). This happens in most sermons on coveting. We concentrate through the sermon on what we don’t have but want as sin, not what we have already in our possession that has robbed others of their means of sufficiency as sin. The end of the sermon keeps the non-poor suburbanites comfortably in their social location of having more; but no application for the non-poor to repent of what they already have coveted, making restoration, and finding the salvation that God’s promises for such faith.

Although most often glossed over with poor application, this is what is most likely meant in the wee-little-man Zacch’s words in Luke 19:8:

“Zacch stopped and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.’”

Whatever the short-little, tree-climbing seeker of Jesus had defrauded the poor, he would restore—just like the Old Testament implies of those who covet, steal, and defraud the poor and economically vulnerable (my goodness, read the Old Testament with your eyes open!). Zacch knew, in the preaching of Jesus was the inauguration of the Kingdom, the presence of the pending judgment of God. God had promised that those who stole and coveted and as a result put the economically vulnerable in peril and in generational poverty would be faced with God’s reciprocal wrath—they too would face such poverty in their life (either through personal tragedy or exile, or death, which would make their wives and children widows and orphans like those they defrauded through stealing and coveting). This is why, when Zacch repents, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham” (v 9).

When a sermon stresses future action to be ceased—i.e., to cease wanting what others have in this case—and neglects to point out what one already has in possession might in fact have already broken the 10th commandment, this leaves the lost (the non-poor who don’t know they are lost but sitting comfortably in the pew) not feeling lost (or having broken any commandment, especially not the ones concerning stealing and coveting) and in no need of being sought after (or of repenting for that matter). That is why Jesus ends the short tree-climbing-humbled-tax-collector story with, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (v10). Contemporary, keep-the-comfortable-comfortable-and-give-more-to-the-church sermons leave the lost (the non-poor right there in the pews each sunday morn’n) not knowing they are actually lost, and as a result, not needing the Son of Man to seek them. This is a sad state of affairs for everyone, for the preacher who leaves the non-poor comfortable and in their sin, the poor who are to be protected, and the non-poor sinner up a tree with no salvation.

Again my three ETS papers have taken a toll on my view of the world and in particular the political world.  I remain conservative politically—low taxes, limited government involvement in almost everything, and in particular how one reads the US Bill of Rights and Constitution: I am an originalist if I need to put a word to it.  But that’s for other posts.  I am profoundly Christian and hopefully someone who seriously thinks christianly.  Now that the papers are done, I am beginning to unpack their implications for me as a person, as a non-poor, evangelical Christian.  The direction I take is focused on, obviously, the local church’s responsibility toward the poor, I have rethought, more clearly, the role of the church in society, that is our task, mission, and activities.  At one of the sessions (i.e., papers) I attended in 2006 in Washington DC (where I presented my first Mark paper, “Widows in Our Courts”) my former colleague and hopefully still good friend, Kenneth Shoemaker presented a paper on the Psalms and God’s mission among the nations.  I was struck by something he concluded: The Psalms as it talks of God’s and Israel’s mission to the nations (i.e., the gentiles), there is a strong sense that “out there” the nations practice unrighteousness and injustice, and that the nations were to see in Israel as a people who did righteousness and justice.  This is certainly in line with my recent paper on “Idolatry and Poverty” (New Orleans, LA 2009), where the biblical view of poverty is set within a God vs. the gods apologetic, God’s righteousness/Israel’s righteousness vs. the god’s/pagans/non-Israelite’s un/righteousness relationship.  Sort of, “Hey look here, our God does righteousness and justice; look at us!” This directs my thinking that perhaps the church’s mission isn’t to change the culture or even fight the culture wars, but to offer through its activities, attitudes, and worldview a righteous alternative and a community of people does justice and advocate on behalf of the poor.

George Coon, in his 2006 ETS paper on Paul B. Henry (Carl Henry’s son and former US Congressman), referred to Henry’s book, Politics for Evangelicals (1974), offered a quote:

“So long as evangelicals engage, then, in prescribing only moral clichés to difficult social and political problems, they are in fact avoiding any direct interrelating of their faith with the sociopolitical world around them” (p 51).

Coon felt that Henry was not denying the important role of evangelism, but that the use of “platitudes” by Christians to deal with social and political ills of society was more of an excuse to not get our hands dirty and do the work of justice and righteousness.  We fight the cultural wars by lobbing catch phrases and platitudes into the public square, whereas the Scriptures actually say (or seems to anyway) that God’s people are to “preserve justice and do righteousness” (Isa 56:1) in the public square.  Maybe we should think less about fighting the cultural wars and should do more to be that alternative community of justice and righteousness. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, we need to “smudge” ourselves with “the hard complexities of the world.” The problem is, most Evangelicals comfortably living in the burbs just don’t like to get smudged with anything.

If you have read through this blog, you know I have often complained about the contemporary church’s building-centered church life.  Not only does this make the non-churched to seek out the church (the opposite of “go into all the world”!), it creates habits—structural and social—that make the church inwardly focused.  As Rusaw and Swanson open in their book, The Externally Focused Churchthere are two groups that the church ought be externally focused upon: The first, those who live on the margins of society, especially the poor.  Perhaps this isn’t good for a church budget or a pastor’s salary, but the church should be reaching out to its neighboring poor—and not just the overseas poor!

Referring to the founder of the Circle Urban Ministries in Chicago, Glen Kehrein, the authors point out that when a church evaluates whether it is a “Healthy Church,” what is normally looked at?  Does the church have dynamic worship [whatever that means]?  Are small groups a vital part of the church?  Does the church demonstrate evangelistic vitality?  Kehrein wondered why there is rarely any mention of caring about those on the margins of society as a part of evaluating a church’s health?  I think he is right on!  He asked, “How can you have a healthy church that has no concern for the poor?” James, the New Testament writer, would have concurred, for he mentions that the health of the church is affected by how the poor are treated.  In fact, he had to remind the church what pure religion must have, namely a concern for the poor (James 1:27).  In fact, we know that even the apostle Paul, deep in the midst of church planting and discipling mentions that he was eager to minister to the poor (Galatians 2:10).

The second group is the central-city in general, i.e., the church is to have the welfare of the city in mind.  I appreciate that the authors, Rusaw and Swanson, point out how the church’s rhetoric (and I might add, often its very actions and non-actions as well) “reinforces the idea of being at war with the city” rather than showing the church’s concern for its welfare.  This book is offers a great primer for being externally focused as a church; very thought provoking, and builds a good base of scripture to support the concept that the church is to be externally focused.

Over the years I have rarely taken chances on books with cliché titles, particularly those written about the church. But in this case I couldn’t help it: The title itself is a good summary of what I have been thinking for some time now, and after three papers on the Gospel of Mark (“Widows in Our” courts on Mark 12; “Wasted Evangelism” on Mark 4; and most recently “Idolatry and Poverty: Where the Public vs. the Private Isn’t Enough,” which examines Mark’s use of the Old Testament juxtaposition of Idolatry and Poverty) that conclude that social action can indeed be evangelism, I can say that there is truth in the cliché “externally focused church.” In fact, I did but the book and was very much intrigued with The Externally Focused Church by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson. I was not disappointed. At the start, they summarize the marks of an outward, externally focused church:

• They are inwardly strong but outwardly focused.



• They integrate good deeds and good news into the life of the church.



• They value impact and influence in the community more than attendance.



• They seek to be salt, light, and leaven in the community.



• They see themselves as the “soul” of the community.



• They would be greatly missed by the community if they left (p 12).

Later they write:

“These churches look for ways to be useful to their communities, to be a part of their hopes and dreams. They build bridges to their communities instead of walls around themselves. They don’t shout at the dirty stream; they get in the water and begin cleaning it up. They determine their effectiveness not only by internal measures—such as attendance, worship, teaching, and small groups—but also by external measures: the spiritual and societal effects they are having on the communities around them. Externally focused churches measure not only what can be counted but also what matters most—the impact they are having outside the four walls of the church” (p 17).

This book heads the church in the right direction. Intriguing. And, this book is at least one that will help churches form that alternative community that seeks justice and mercy.