Words'nTone

No direct routes, so it took me almost two days of travel just for the back and forth from Bridgeport (CT) to New Orleans. But it was worth it. The Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) 2009 annual meeting was wonderful, especially the fellowship.

Last year (2008) when the Other Voices Study Group of the ETS met to decide on the 2009 topic and possible papers, I voiced a concern that we (meaning evangelicals) had accepted and probably promote labeling that defines us as wealthier, suburban, conservative, capitalistic-market loving and politically republicans. I wasn’t happy or comfortable with such labeling (even though I am quite conservative politically), so I said I’d like to develop a paper on the subject of poverty where the biblical content resists such designating labeling. I had noticed in studying and researching my 2008 paper on Mark 4 and the Sower who sows that the bible juxtaposed the two concepts of idolatry and poverty—in fact almost every time (every time) a biblical author mentions the poor, the economically vulnerable, or the issue of poverty, somewhere in the context (many times immediately) or in the flow of thought there would be a reference to the prohibition against idolatry or the God of the Bible vs. the gods polemic. In fact in my study of Mark itself revealed that almost every time Mark makes a significant point or uses the OT to develop his NT revelation, he draws from these idolatry-poverty juxtaposed OT texts. I though a paper on this subject would be enlightening (at least to me). I thought such a study would help undue labeling and help to disallow the defining evangelicals through the lens of politics.

After the study (as previous posts suggest), my premise for this idolatry-poverty juxtaposition is that the issue of poverty is raised to the level of apologetics, a biblical defense of the living God as revealed in Scripture. Not so much an argument for God’s existence, but a living application by non-poor Christians as an apologetic for the Biblical God as the One true God, through reflecting His profile in how they, non-poor Christians, associate with the poor and in living out the biblical outcomes related to those affected by the issues of poverty. This is another set of reasons why I believe social action can be evangelism.

Furthermore, over the years as a conservative whose occupation is related to the social service world and in particular, Community Action, I have tired over the repeated non-truth that is often posited by non-poor exurbanites: “I did it on my own. Without government help. So should the poor. If they just take advantage of the opportunities to make something of their lives….” This mantra, repeated over and over, was and is bothersome and doesn’t make it more true (even if Rush and Sean Hannity keep saying it again and again). Please don’t read into this or my comments about my paper that the issue of poverty is fully the government’s responsibility. But read that I no-longer will accept that any “rich” or suburban non-poor did it on their own. They didn’t and still don’t. They had and have help along the way and government help to boot. (Read my paper or the previous posts.)

At the close of the session where I presented my paper, I referenced this “I did it on my own attitude” among Christians. (Of all Americans, Christians should never have such an attitude, ever.) I mentioned that there was an old story about the issue of kicking out prayer in schools, where there was a billboard in the South that read, “As long as there are math tests in school, there will always be prayer in schools.” I said I thought of a new billboard where it says, “As long as there are zoning boards, conservatives will never totally believe in the invisible hand of the market.”

In the end I was, through the paper, hoping to create a new, more biblical way of thinking about poverty for non-poor Christians. My hope is in the next few weeks to post the paper as a PDF. For now you can read through the previous posts and threads where the draft and notes have been posted. Just keep flipping back in time, you’ll find them.

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.