Banking on God: Theology, Part 3

I’d not intended on writing a third post on theology in my “Banking on God” series, but a combination of events convinced me I need to say more.

Today in church, we had a visiting evangelist from Ghana in Africa. He regularly comes to our church because we help his missions organization minister in the countries of Liberia, Ghana, and Togo. He’s a gentle, self-effacing, native-born African who always has a powerful word to speak to us Americans, especially how we must bring Jesus to Africans and also address their extreme poverty.

As I listened to him speak, he drove home a truth that can’t be ignored. And while I already knew of the situation he detailed, I never saw how critical it was until yesterday morning.

Islam continues to swallow the northern half of Africa, with more and more countries becoming majority/exclusively Muslim each year. Poverty, Christianity, and Islam in Africa Part of the reason for Islam’s growth in Africa is that “evangelists” for Islam have learned what Christian missionaries knew for years: people are more willing to embrace your message if you help meet their physical needs.

To this end, Muslims are building schools, hospitals, wells, orphanages, electrical generators, and mosques at record pace. And they’re doing so backed by the money we pay for oil. With a barrel of oil over $100, it doesn’t take a genius to see where this is heading. The Saudis funnel massive amounts of money to Islamic “missions” programs, and the leaders of those programs go into villages loaded full of cash they lavishly spend to help poor people out of crippling poverty.

This evangelist told us that this is a very difficult issue to overcome, especially when Christians cannot muster the same outpouring of largess. Worse, he told us that many projects by a number of Christian ministries in his area have stalled due to a lack of funds.

Part of his work is to help new converts find work because so many people are stuck in grinding poverty. His organization equips people to start businesses and find careers because the need is so great and so practical. His hope is that the Christians in the countries he ministers to will leverage their new businesses to make local churches self-supporting. But they are not there yet.

Sadly, as Christian efforts break even or stall, the continued flood of cash by Muslim organizations is perpetuating Islam’s tsunami through Northern and Central Africa.

I heard this and, I’ll tell you, it just made me sick to my stomach. Truly.

I don’t want to think that the reins we keep on our wealth here in the American Church are so tight that millions will go to a Christless eternity for our stinginess. And while some may argue that money is not the reason for people going to hell, surely a lack of benevolence on our part contributes to that outcome. The starving African should not come to the Christian and be turned away for lack of funds—only to find comfort in the arms of wealthy Islam.

Are we ready for that kind of apologetic? Isn’t it sad to think that Christians, who once built the vast majority of hospitals, schools, and orphanages around the world are being rapidly outspent in those same areas by Muslims?

In an age when rational Western Christians have largely dismissed signs and wonders evangelistic techniques, we either need to re-evaluate our anti-supernatural position in light of Islam’s outpouring of cash or exceed that benevolence with our greater giving. If we can’t compete monetarily, we better have something a whole lot better to offer people, something that meets their physical need right where they are.

As the Bible notes,

But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”
—Acts 3:6

That’s something Islam can’t possibly hope to match.

***

Banking On God: Series Compendium

The Evils of Community?

Tuesday, I wrote on the need for us Christians to understand that community and relationship with others is at the core of who we are as Christians, especially as it relates to the Great Commission and meeting the needs of others. You simply can’t have a ministry without people.

Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal ran a sidebar column that absolutely blew my mind. It shows exactly what we Christians are up against when it comes to fighting for depth in community. I almost never reproduce an entire article, but this one (“What’s Hurting America? Widespread Homeownership“) contains mind-boggling assertions in nearly every sentence:

Widespread homeownership has proven benefits for the nation but the Atlantic‘s Clive Crook says it brings some serious economic drawbacks with it. Citing research from Warwick University economist Andrew Oswald, Mr. Crook says the main problem with homeowners is that they are less mobile than renters. Less willing to leave their homes for greener pastures when the local economy falters, homeowners slow the nation’s economic growth and exacerbate unemployment issues by staying put. Communities of homeowners also often suppress new development by calling for new zoning rules.
On the plus side, homeowners are more invested in their communities, more likely to vote and work harder to improve their neighborhoods, but the overall societal good in homeownership isn’t clear-cut, Mr. Crook says. To that end, he questions the wisdom of the mortgage-interest tax deduction, a subsidy set up to ostensibly encourage widespread homeownership.
Mr. Crook said the deduction often promotes over-borrowing and higher spending, thus artificially increasing home values and placing borrowers in greater financial risk during downturns, such as the current housing market crunch. On a broader level, higher investments in housing †“ fueled by the tax deduction — come at the expense of investments in areas that expand the economy, such as commercial building and spending on business equipment, he says. — Troy McCullough

This is what we Christians are up against. If we fight tooth and nail to preserve our communities, we’re labeled “malcontents” for doing so. Bad! Bad house! We “exacerbate unemployment issues by staying put” and cause untold hardship fighting for zoning laws that restrict sprawl and consumerism.

Unbelievable.

Want to hurt the Church in this country even more? Increasingly force congregants to move every few years to chase jobs.

Want to bring most ministerial works within a church to a standstill? Keep changing the mix of people in the church so the wheel must constantly be reinvented.

At least nomadic tribesmen stay together as a tribe, but the kind of thinking listed in that article pretty much ensures alienation and disconnection.

Americans are already some of the most mobile people in the world. Studies show most families stay in one spot for less than seven years. Multiply that by a hundred families in a church and it’s no wonder little gets accomplished for the Kingdom. Everyone’s constantly on the move. People don’t get extended years ministering Christ to each other or to their communities.

This constant nomadic existence chasing fleeting jobs from one part of the country to another is why the Church in America MUST start speaking to issues of work and the revitalization of local and regional economies. The world is telling us that we can’t be good citizens if we want to put down roots and minister for years in the same community.

I’m not saying that we petrify in one spot. Even Jesus said that those of us who leave houses and lands for the sake of the Gospel will be blessed. Still, I suspect that most people in my town aren’t born again, so what is my obligation?

If my living situation is so transitory that I never truly get involved to any depth in the lives of those around me, then I’m less effective as a messenger of the Gospel. Just the disorientation of having to adjust to a new place means people who move are preoccupied with everything BUT ministry. The amount of bureaucracy and paperwork alone that accompanies moving within the same city is a nightmare, much less chasing jobs from city to city. That constant disequilibrium is the world’s way of distracting us from what truly matters.

We Christians have got to get serious about creating our own alternative/underground economy. We’ve got to be better networked so that people in our congregations don’t have to leave town to find work. We’ve got to start thinking of innovative ways to bring in income, even if it means exploring communal living arrangements that eliminate our need to duplicate goods to survive . If we can be freed of the need for the kind of jobs that force us to move from town to town looking for work, then let’s start working toward that goal.

I keep hoping and praying that someone on the national Christian stage will start speaking up about these issues. They play into the busyness that is crippling our effectiveness as the ambassadors of Christ in a dying world. If we’re constantly having to plan what city we’re going to move to next so we can follow the jobs willy-nilly, we’ll be distracted and ineffective our entire lives.

And that’s just what the Enemy wants.

(In similar news, it looks like we’ve been lied to for years about the lack of engineers and scientists in this country. If anything, there’s a glut. This hasn’t stopped Congress from continuing to demand H-1B visas to bring in more foreign workers to displace American engineers and scientists. I’ve been saying for years that the shortage of tech workers is a lie. Now the lie comes out. I think our government owes us former tech workers an enormous apology. If I had a Benjamin for every tech worker I’ve met who was forced into a nomadic existence to find work, or who bailed from tech altogether, I could’ve retired by now.)

Jobs, Networking, and the Church

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
—Galatians 6:10-11

Regular readers of Cerulean Sanctum know that I write pointed posts about the need for Christians to help each other, especially when it comes to finding a good job.

Tim Challies put out a call for a job for his brother, Andrew, who has a mild form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. Tim’s brother lives in the Chattanooga, TN, area and would like to find clerical or data entry positions. Details can be found at Challies.com.

I’ve never been one to understand the odd way we American Christians view the unemployed. I remember sharing with a group of men at a wealthy church my wife and I were visiting (with hopes of possibly joining) that I had lost my job and was looking for work. They stared me over for a few moments, then returned to chit-chatting, literally turning their backs on me as if I were no longer there. I will never forget that horrid sensation that I had suddenly become a non-entity to them.

Many people can tell these kinds of awful stories. In truth, those stories should never occur within the Body of Christ. When the Lord says that we are to love Him and love our neighbor as ourselves, there can be no truer love for a brother or sister in Christ than to help be their network when they are looking for a job.

After Pentecost, the first thing the nascent Church did was ensure that no one among them lacked for basic physical needs. As far as I see it, no need could be more basic than to have a decent job.

Which is why I’m continually perplexed at the American Church’s slighting of the unemployed. I’ve written many times here that we’re under this cursed Charlie Brown and Linus offer some useless help bootstrapping nonsense that says that “God helps those who help themselves.” That’s the antithesis of the communion of saints, though.

If anything, the continued presence of the unemployed within our congregations is a damning statement about our inability to walk beside our brethren in their time of need. One brother (who recently did find work after nearly a year of searching) asked me for advice on his search. I advised him to ask the church leadership for permission to stand up before the congregation and discuss his need for work. He told me that if he asked for employment in front of his congregation, dozens of others would clamor to make the same request. To which I said, “So? Isn’t that supposed to be the way the Body functions?”

Well, isn’t it?

I’m concerned about the economic state of North America. Disparities between the rich and poor are growing, with the middle class sliding down the pay scale. I believe we’re on shaky ground, shakier as the subprime mortgage fiasco ripples out to touch all parts of our economy. Signs are there for another recession. I also believe we’re in a boom and bust cycle that will have longer busts and shorter booms as time goes on. You think the last recession was bad? Just wait.

If we’re not there for each other, working hard to meet the job needs of our fellow believers (especially those in our local congregations), aren’t we rejecting one of God’s major reasons for the Church to exist?

Honestly, I get really tired of witnessing the following:

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
—James 2:15-16

Indeed, what good is that?

I get labeled as a dour guy sometimes. My problem as I see it is that I am hopeful that we’ll live up to our high calling. That we seem to have so little care to live up to that calling makes me sad. Yes, it’s a high calling, but it’s not an impossible one. Yet we act as if someone’s unemployment is as unmanageable as a tornado.

How big is your God? Mine’s pretty blasted enormous! And that universe-eclipsing Lord we serve is looking for people who believe He can rip up the mountains and toss them into the sea! A job? How hard is that to get?

Well, it may be very hard if no one cares to use the contacts and networks we’ve all built to guide someone to gainful employment. We can bury that network in the ground. We can say that we’re just too busy to get involved. But if that’s our attitude, then we shouldn’t be surprised when the Lord comes back and isn’t totally pleased with how we’ve managed the resources He gave us.

We all know we need to improve our community in our churches. Making sure we help people find work is one of the keys to that better community. Because if we in our plenty won’t actively labor to help those searching for jobs, who will help us when we’re the ones laid off?