The Church and Justice in Crisis:
The Social Reality of the Church and its Role of Proclaiming Justice
The Church and Mission in the 21st Century
Edited by Manuel Ortiz, William S. Barker and Samuel T. Logan
A Fetzschrift for Dr. Harvie M. Conn
Professor Emeritus,
Westminster Theological Seminary
The Church and Justice in Crisis
Justice is part of the gospel. For many evangelicals and other religious traditions, there have been attempts to separate the mandates of the gospel proclamation from the practice of "doing justice" in the world. Yet, the biblical witness interconnects the proclamation of the gospel with the practice of justice and peace-making. For Micah, doing justice is by definition doing the will of God. "He has told you O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).
Implicit in the gospel message is the proclamation of the coming of a Kingdom of God "on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). The overwhelming majority of images in the New Testament reflect the notion that individuals who embrace the faith become part of a corporate body, the church. Individuals become part of a redeemed and redeeming community. They become a new people, a holy nation--the "body of Christ" in the world. This kingdom, or rule of God, is indeed the reign of God over the hearts of men and women. However, God's reign also embraces the whole cosmos.
There are a number of scriptural passages that push us beyond charity to social justice. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus announced his coming by appealing to the prophet Isaiah. Jesus' proclamation functioned in many ways as an inaugural address. He was proclaiming what his vocation was all about, a vocation that embraced responsibility to, in and for the public realm.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (Luke 4: 18-19).
While scholars debate the relationship of this passage to the "poor and spirit" passage in the Gospel of Matthew, it is clear that in Luke, Jesus was referring to the literal poor. Actually, it is possible that the "poor in spirit" in Matthew are not the humble, but the humiliated; not the one's who are of a meek character, but the ones who are broken in spirit, crushed and denied of their humanity.
For Luke, these were not merely the spiritual poor, but were the actual poor. Specifically, they were the widows, orphans, women and children, those looked down upon for reasons of race, ethnicity or nationality. They were the diseased, the politically outcaste, tax-collectors and other "sinners"-those assumed hopelessly outside the circle of religious and social privilege. In short, the gospel was for these poor, those who were blind, sick, lame and, on occasion, even those thought to be dead but brought back to life. These were also people who, for whatever reason, found themselves on the outside of official religious, social and political institutions.
For Walter Brueggemann, Jesus, like the prophets of the Old Testament, presented what he called an "alternative consciousness." It was his solidarity with the poor that distinguished Jesus from other itinerants of his time.
Jesus is remembered and presented by the early church as the faithful embodiment of an alternative consciousness. In his compassion he embodies the anguish of those rejected by the dominant culture, and as embodied anguish he has the authority to show the deathly end of the dominant culture. Quite clearly, the one thing the dominant culture cannot tolerate or co-opt is compassion, the ability to stand in solidarity with the victims of the present order. It can manage charity and good intentions, but it has no way to resist solidarity with pain or grief. So the structures of competence and competition stand helpless before the one who groaned the groans of hurting ones…. If the groans become audible, if they can be heard in the streets and markets and courts, then the consciousness of domination is already jeopardized.
The passage from Luke 4 is a declaration of Jesus' position with respect to the dominant culture. It raises other questions as well. What does it mean to be the anointed of God? What does it mean today for individuals and communities who strive to be faithful to the gospel mandate? What is the gospel, and how can the good news be explicitly directed to the poor? Who are the poor then and now? What does it mean to proclaim release to captives, or as other passages have it, the forgiveness of debtors? What does it mean to let the oppressed go free? Who is it today that is oppressed? How can their freedom be achieved and how is that freedom connected to the proclamation of the gospel? Finally, what do we mean here by the year of the Lord's favor?
If we are able to answer these questions, and to answer them in the context of the whole of scripture, perhaps we can find once again a mandate for the faithful everywhere, and reason to be involved in the work of social justice as a manifestation of the gospel.
The gospel is of course, good news. More academic sources will describe the word (Grk. Euangelion) as connected not to the mere proclamation, verbally declaring that something new is on the horizon, but as connected to action (praxis), and even to the creation of a new world. In fact, one can compare this proclamation with the proclamation in the Book of Genesis. "Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw that the light was good" (literally good beyond comparison, tob maod). University of Chicago Religion scholar Jonathan Z. Smith, editor of the Harper Dictionary of Religion, describes the uniqueness of the biblical proclamation when compared with other Near Eastern creation stories. Here, Smith observes, the world is created by speech or by proclamation. Proclamation is thus intimately connected with creative action. The Word of proclamation does more than announce good news, it is part and parcel of creating and ushering in the new reality.
So, when Apostle John announces that the Word has becomes flesh and dwelt among us, he was describing the radical invasion of the transcendent into the world of ordinary human history, time and space, freedom and contingency, hope amid hopelessness. John 1:14 of course is the great verse that describes the incarnation, that God became flesh in a human person and dwelt among us, sharing our plight and suffering as human beings. The radical nature of the gospel affirms, in word as well as in creative act--that the whole world has changed, reality has been altered, something new has begun, and this something new effects all of us, particularly those who now believe, including those who were once "a far off," those often shut out of existing political and economic regimes.
Yet, this proclamation was not offered in the abstract, but was proclaimed to people in particular contexts. With regard to Jesus' public ministry, interpreters are now paying more attention to the urban and urbanizing character of ancient Galilee and Judea. Although many of Jesus' parables were agricultural, there was a close connection between the growth of produce and the work that produced them. In Roman Palestine, agricultural and urban worlds were interconnected. More and more, people lived in the cities and towns of Jesus' world. Jesus' travels took him to the many cities and towns in Galilee and Judea. He visited Jerusalem as many as five times. He visited many of the other cities and towns along the way including Nazareth, Bethany, Capernaum and the cities of the Decapolis (ten Greek cities) region. Further, he specifically related his purpose in the Gospel of Luke as connected to the proclamation of the gospel to the cities. In Luke 4:43, he stated: "I must proclaim the good news of the coming Kingdom of God to other cities also (beyond Nazareth), for I was sent for this purpose." Jesus was clear about his calling and his vocation as one anointed to proclaim the gospel to the poor in the cities. Hope for the cities and a vision for a new societal arrangement are implicit in the gospel proclamation. This new order, the Kingdom of God, became an end in itself. It became the ultimate hope, even for cities and cultures that found themselves alienated from the Creator-- and from the reigning political, first century Greco-Roman global economy.
In this context, Jubilee 2000, the release of the third world from its indebtedness to the first world makes perfect sense. From this passage, a clear application of the proclamation of a coming favorable year of the Lord is seen in the movement to forgive impoverished and dependent nations of their debts. At the same time, the gospel is a challenge to mammon in all its forms. It is a challenge that the rich cannot remain satisfied in their prosperity if there are poor among them. If the rich young ruler was challenged to sell his possessions and give to the poor, it is a challenge also to create social arrangements so that, even if there are poor people, there cannot be poverty. Thus the passage regarding the "poor" as "always being with us" requires that our social structures provide for the poor in every generation. In Deuteronomy 15, the passage Jesus was referring to, the ancient Israelite commonwealth was required to always care for the poor. It was never an option or a justification for inaction.
Models of Social Change
Churches have often been on the forefront of movements for social change. They are frequently involved in alleviating problems connected with hunger, poverty, social, economic and political injustice. There are at least five ways that churches are engaged in the pursuit of social justice in the city. They are 1) the building of community or what some call "social capital," 2) the provision of social services, 3) participation in activities of advocacy on behalf of poor and marginalized peoples, 4) community organization at the local level, including political activism in connection with all levels of government, local, regional and national and, 5) community economic development.
Dr. Lowell Livezey, director of the Religion and Urban American program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues that, most fundamentally, churches provide the place and constitute the social linkages that enhance "social capital" and build community in low-income neighborhoods. Social capital theory is in a sense a reaction to other theories of community formation, particularly those of "human capital" and "rational choice theory."
There are various kinds of capital that exists in even the most devastated of urban communities. First of all there is physical capital. This is the land, the buildings, tools, and the physical infrastructure that exists in every place. While it is true that there is much abandonment of land and of buildings in inner city communities in cities like Detroit, Chicago or New York, such land is awaiting a new day when market conditions or visionaries realize once again the value of abandoned land. The East Brooklyn Churches are "taking back the land" in Brooklyn, New York. Private developers are converting once abandoned factories and warehouses to loft apartments in downtown Chicago. Land and buildings once abandoned are now being redeveloped, mostly as a social good, but sometimes as a problem for existing residents leading to displacement.
"Human capital" describes the goal of enhancing the skills and enlarging opportunities for individuals. Once individuals have been educated, it is assumed that they will act on their options available to them in a rational way. These are perhaps the "thousand points of light" that exist in every community. Rational choice theory says that such individuals will choose to better their own condition and their neighbors as well, and that the barriers that contain them can be overcome. Strategically, this means that public policy should pay attention to the educational and workforce skills needs of individuals, but not to the structures or policies that limit individual choice. If these individuals are prepared, benefits would trickle down, resulting in an uplift of the community as a whole. As one person said: "a rising tide lifts all boats," or does it?
Financial capital describes the economic resources held by communities, or to such that is potentially available to any community from banks, churches, foundations or other institutions such as the National Equity Fund or local community trusts. The problems facing many inner city communities is that the dollars made by workers in those communities end up spending their money outside their community. The result is that economic and financial resources are not maintained in the neighborhood. The resources leave the community for somewhere else. Residents don't own or control the mechanisms of economic growth, and for whatever reason, market incentives or government policy has not found a way to become invested in many low-income communities. So, an important question for many low-income communities is how to get access to financial capital.
A fourth form of capital is political capital. This is the ability or the capacity to exert influence over the political process. Often, constituencies of low-income communities do not control their own destiny because the political officials who represent them were not elected by them. Or, for reasons of social distance, they are not able to impact City Hall or the state or national governments to obtain necessary resources. The community has either inattentive or ineffective leadership. Communities sometimes realize that they need to organize and become greater participants in the political process. Otherwise, their voice is not heard, and the capacity to shape the destiny of one's own community is restricted.
Social Capital is the social glue that can be found in almost all communities. The extent that social capital is operative determines the ability of local communities and their associations to attract other forms of capital to their neighborhoods. Social capital includes the "shared norms, shared understandings, trust, and other factors that make relationships feasible and productive." Social capital is "the stock of knowledge and other resources that enable members of a neighborhood or social network to help one another, especially in relationship to education, economic opportunity, and social mobility." What churches do best is to build community. Existing in churches already are social networks and connections with organizations and other constituencies in the neighborhood. Churches provide a place for residents to meet, and provide the symbolic language necessary so that the meeting has meaning. Churches provide a place and mechanism so that relationships are built, while common problems and common dreams emerge. Social capital theory argues that problems are best solved, not by individuals, but by groups who act together in their own interest. From the standpoint of community building, the church is then able to deliberate what it must do to address the needs in the community. Human capital allows individuals to escape the community. Social capital builds the community by addressing systemic and structural issues as well as personal ones. Robert D. Putnam summarizes the importance of social capital for enhancing the capacities for community problem solving.
In the first place, networks for civic engagement foster sturdy norms of generalized reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social trust. Such networks facilitate coordination and communication, amplify reputations, and thus allow dilemmas of collective action to be resolved. When economic and political negotiation are embedded in dense networks of social interaction, incentives for opportunism are reduced. At the same time, networks of civic engagement embody past success at collaboration, which can serve as a cultural template for future collaboration. Finally, dense networks of interaction probably broaden the participants' sense of self, developing the "I" into the "we," or (in the language of rational choice theorists) enhancing the participants taste for collective benefits.
Charity or almsgiving has a long tradition in the history of religious faith communities, Christian churches in particular. However, today's practice of social service delivery has its trappings. On the positive side, the delivery of social services such as food, temporary shelter, medicines, and clothing are very important. Social services are needed and provide temporary relief to the needy. However, there are limits to social service delivery as practiced. First, social services doe not begin to address the long term causes that contribute to the symptoms that we see, such as hunger or homelessness. Second, the way services are delivered maintains a "we versus them" relationship, as the server gives something to the "client," or the "recipient" of the service, but the recipient is not invited in to become part of a community. In the service model, the "client" is not treated as an equal, or even as a human being with a wide range of human needs.
Analyses of social service delivery methods abound. Dieter Hessel argues that social services not only don't address systemic issues, but often legitimate the established order.
It renders its clients dependent on social services, and keeps the recipient powerless in the process. Further, if all the church does is give out social services, and it must do at least that, it really misses the deeper calling to build an inclusive community, on the one hand, or to pursue social justice and the equitable distribution of goods and services, on the other hand, including the opportunity for skills development as well. We have all heard the wisdom: "if you give me fish to eat today, I will be hungry tomorrow, teach me to fish, and I will eat for a lifetime." The biblical model not only gives what is needed, but invites the stranger into the community. It seeks to redress systemic issues at the level of causation. That in the nutshell is the difference between charity and social justice. Sociologist C. Wright Mills said that we need "sociological imagination." We need to look beyond the obvious, and beyond the symptom, to see how a problem is created, and why the symptoms exist in the first place. "Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between 'the personal troubles of the milieu' and 'the public issues of social structure.' This distinction is an essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science."
John McKnight also critiques the social service delivery model. Not only does it create dependency, he argues, but it maintains a culture of professionalism that destroys community. McKnight goes on to argue that we need to shift from a "deficiency" model of delivering social services to an "assets model" that looks at the capacity, potential and talent of people in communities, despite their challenges. For McKnight, challenges are best solved by the individuals that are most effected. McKnight believes that goals need to be redefined as "recommunalization." By this he means that "the possible future will reach beyond allopathy (sik), therapy, and even deinstitutionalization to what might be called recommunalization-a recognition that it is in person, place and peers that possibilities of regenerative community occur."
As Dutch theologian and political philosopher, Abraham Kuyper, puts it; if all we do is allow our crumbs to fall from our tables to feed the poor, then "all such charity is more like an insult that beats in the bosom of the poor man (and woman)." For Kuyper, problems facing hungry people will not be solved with charity, but by an "architectonic critique of the social order." Charity which only attends to the symptoms of a problem is "not yet Christian love." In the world, charity at its best raises ultimate questions about how society is structured, how social systems and policies contribute to the problems facing low-income, "minority", and disenfranchised groups.
The biblical model of charity differs from the modern social service model in a number of ways. First, charity is not given for its own sake, but contributes to the building of an inclusive community. Second, the early Christian practice of charity exemplified a new social model, where those with abundance not only supplied what was lacking for those who were in need, but welcomed the latter as equals to the table of fellowship. Third, the giving of what was needed to the poor was not just an act of charity, but was an expected activity that would and should naturally flow out of a social structures that existed to further and insure that justice was the norm. Justice and the pursuit of justice thus constituted the grounding for the giving of public goods.
Churches most naturally respond by delivering social services to the needy. I recall several years ago what the Rev. James Harper, founder of the Center for Street People, said about his work. Basically, the Center was giving temporary assistance to the homeless in the forms of food, a shelter bed and perhaps clothing-- but the effect was only to 1) improve their quality of life for that day only, and 2) to extend their lifetime ever so slightly.
Of course, the biblical message with regard to compassion for the needy is very strong. The Gospel of Matthew gives clear tests for discipleship. The great passage in Matthew 25 is actually in the context of the judgment on the nations for failed policies with respect to the vulnerable. In short, the practice of charity was not expected as benevolence, but is portrayed in this passage as a requirement of the nations based on a higher norm of justice.
We know the passage very well:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was imprisoned and you visited me (Matthew 25:35-36).
This passage is a challenge to the policies of nations and states, as well as to the practices of churches and even individual believers. Nations, and the people in them, are judged, not on the basis of some abstract confession of faith, but on the basis of how they lived out the gospel and its calling to be just and compassionate for "the least of these my brethren." In the Epistle of James, there are the familiar passages that combine faith and works, and also a description of "pure" religion. For James, religion that is pure and undefiled is "to care for the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world" (James 1:27).
The early church was, of course, dominated by a call to "remember the poor." As one reads the book of Acts, it is clear that St. Paul's purpose was to set up churches (Grk ekklesiai) in each city of the Mediterranean world. Scholars like Roland Allen have noted the strategic purpose of capturing the cities, even if beginning as a house church next to a synagogue as was the case in Corinth.
What is less known or discussed are the reasons that Paul undertook his missionary journeys. True, his primary purpose was to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles (nations). While the whole purpose of the gospel was to evangelize individuals and to baptize them into believing communities, which "turned the world upside down." Paul challenged authorities, bridged nation-states, linked and unified ethnic groups, mollified the class structure by welcoming slaves and free, men and women, Jews and national groups into a new community. As John Perkins has said in his many writings, the gospel "burned through" barriers of race, class, culture," and we might add, even gender. Early sociologists of religion such as Shirley Jackson Case of the old University of Chicago school noticed that early Christianity "triumphed" because 1) it reached the cities, 2) included a diversity of people, and 3) met the spiritual and material needs of the poor and marginal of Greco-Roman society.
However, in addition to "spreading the Gospel," Paul was also involved in unifying the church, and bringing together the congregations throughout the world by challenging them to respond to needy people with tangible acts of compassion. The churches that Paul founded were important centers in the Roman world. The early church established a beachhead at Antioch, one of the largest cities of the world at that time with an estimated population of 600,000 people. Antioch was known for its rigid segregation of people by race and religion as there was a Jewish quarter, a Roman quarter, a Syrian quarter and the like. Still, the church appealed to a diverse group of people as leaders including Lucius of Cyrene (an African), Manaaen of the Court of Herod and Simeon Niger (also an African).
At about that time, as there were apparently many such economic swings in ancient times, there was the report of a famine in Judea.
At that time prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Holy Spirit that there would be a severe famine all over the world; and this took place in the reign of Claudius. The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea, this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabus and Saul (Paul) (Acts 11:27-30).
Josephus, the famous Jewish historian of ancient times, reports that there was a famine in Judea in the late 40s of the common era, and that food shortages were common, depending on ancient world "boom and bust" economic cycles. What is remarkable about this theme, the collection, is how often it appears throughout the Pauline letters. In the letter to the Galatians, an epistle that many think was the first written by the Apostle, Paul states that after meeting with the pillar apostles in Jerusalem, among other things, he was asked to "remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do" (Gal. 2:10).
Further, at the end of Paul's letter to the Romans, Paul was reflecting on the mutual obligations Gentile Christians had with their Jewish brothers and sisters. Following his missionary journeys, Paul cites the collection as a prime reason for his travels.
At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints…for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints and Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things (Romans 15: 25-27).
Clearly, Paul thought that an exchange between the two races was imperative. He clearly was trying to develop a unified church worldwide, even as tangible needs were being addressed in the sharing of the collection.
In Second Corinthians, Paul challenges the Corinthians to be like the churches of Macedonia. Paul's "be like us" is tied to a specific model. Paul notes, that despite their "severe affliction" and "extreme poverty," the Macedonians gave with much generosity. "They voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints" (II Corinthians 8:3-4). Paul goes on to recite one of the great declarations with regard to the significance of the incarnation, which takes on a new meaning when we apply it to economic and social realities. "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (II Cor. 8:9).
The incarnation was not just a theological event, but an event that challenges our economic and social relationships. Paul was clearly looking to a global church that would share its resources, spiritual and material. In the same chapter, Paul's economic philosophy and doctrine of community follows his understanding of the Person and Work of Christ.
I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little" (II Cor. 8:13-15).
This is not too far off the command of political radicals, "too each according to one's needs, from each according to one's means." It is almost as if those on the left politically have this biblical passage from Paul's letters in mind.
Clearly, there is a theological and human dimension to Paul's economic radicalism. It would be hard to argue from these letters that Paul is supporting a materialist philosophy. On the contrary, the goals for Paul were the evangelization of the nations, a unified network of churches by city, and a just distribution of economic resources, especially food and supplies for people suffering from a severe famine.
The early church had already modeled out a form of communitarianism in the Book of Acts (chapters 2 and 4). What happened to a church that once "had all things in common; [and would then] sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any who had need?" They "ate food in their homes with glad and generous hearts" (Acts 2:43-44). While some were poor, "there was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34).
What happened to a church that once cared about the welfare of the neighbor? Have we forgotten that the gospel is inseparably connected with the practice of compassion and the pursuit of social justice? Have we forgotten what it means to care about our neighbor? A solution can be found again as we revisit the meaning and significance of the incarnation. For the early Christians, the giving of charity was rooted in social justice.
The practice of charity-giving contributed to the building of an inclusive community whereby all, rich and poor, were invited to the Lord's Table, and more broadly, to the sharing of common goods. The original purpose of the diaconate in Acts 6 was to provide the common goods of the community (Grk. is koinonia, to hold goods in common).
For Dieter Hessel, advocacy happens when people with expertise and a high commitment for justice seek to change social structures, laws, policies and practices so that the poor experience less in the way of destitution or oppression. Many organizations, church-based, have led the fight for a more just social order, by advocating for the less fortunate. Organizations are legion. One need only mention some Chicago-based organizations that can be found in other cities as well. These include the Interfaith Council for the Homeless, Protestants for the Common Good, the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America, the Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago, the Jewish Council for Urban Affairs, the Community Renewal Society, the Metropolitan Alliance of Congregations or the United Power for Action and Justice-just to name a few. These organizations are all church-based, and seek to advocate for changes in government policy. They are headed by informed staff people who work full time on issues such as housing for homeless people, campaign finance reform, a moratorium on the death penalty, welfare reform, school reform, jobs, funding for affordable housing and the like.
Advocacy has a rich biblical tradition as well. Most of the sins of ancient Israel were social sins. The rulers and authorities did not speak up to defend the needy. They failed, according to the prophets, because they did not advocate on behalf of the poor or protect them from exploitation or oppression.
Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? (Jer. 5:27-29).
Isaiah's indictment of Jerusalem is very similar. There were no longer to be found advocates for the poor in the city.
How the faithful city has become a whore! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her-now murderers! Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow's cause does not come before them (Isaiah 1:21-23).
With all the talk of "family values" among the pious then and now, it is interesting to this reader that the sins that faced the Prophets were sins that impacted the way the society was structured. A solution to the problem was more than just the welfare of individuals, but was interconnected with the establishment and maintenance of just social structures. The poor, many of them being "widows and orphans," were to be protected by rulers and authorities. If not, prophets such as Jeremiah and Isaiah advocated for them. In Psalms 82, subtitled as "Justice as the Order of the Universe" by the editors of the HarperCollins Study Bible, the call here is to the nations, and to the official representatives or to those who advocate for the vulnerable ones-- to ensure that justice was provided for the needy and the weak. "How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked" (Psalm 82: 2-4). With over 400 verses in the Bible dedicated to the welfare of the poor, the just treatment of the poor and the importance of advocates for the poor cannot be understated. Charles Dickens, in one of his investigative pieces in the middle of the nineteenth century noted that the authorities in London celebrated when they could reduce the role and lessen the financial burden of giving relief to the needy. The attitude of the public relief officials in London at the time was "if the poor creatures were made too comfortable, more would come." For Dickens, the public relief system contributed more to the emizeration of the poor than their relief. A corollary strategy of governing authorities was a) to make it as difficult as possible for the poor to get relief, and b) to foster a culture that blames the poor for their poverty, and lays at their doorstep the reasons for their oppression. Too often, churches have also bought into the practice of blaming the victim, even when those on the margin work pretty hard as a rule to "bootstrap" beyond their condition with meager resources.
Shel Trapp, a community organizer in Chicago, minces no words when he argues that "the first excuse out of the enemy's mouth" is "it's your own fault." He goes further: "It seems that whenever there is an organizing drive on any issue it turns out to be the fault of those oppressed. It never seems to be the fault of those doing the oppressing." In 1996, the President of the United States consented to a bill that would "end welfare as we know it." Many states began a "race to the bottom" to curtail welfare rolls. While many laud the goal of moving people on welfare to work, the bill is fraught with several problems. First, adequate training and time for people to move off welfare is missing. Second, the jobs being created for low-income people are temporary jobs without benefits and low wages that does not really allow such people to move beyond welfare dependency. Biblically, we know that the "workman deserves his wages," so that the question of adequate jobs with livable wages remains. Would not a more biblical goal for welfare reform efforts be to "eliminate poverty as we know it?" If so, then there would be less need for welfare reform. Even so, facts show that most individuals who are poor in this country are children, and many who are homeless today are homeless families, not the usual stereotypes perpetrated by members of the media and policymakers.
Still, there are limits to advocacy. For the most part, advocacy is done by professional activists. These professionals, with good intentions, try to act for others, so as to improve the lot of those on the margins. However, there is a problem, in that the poor are sometimes not involved in the process. Professional activists "act for" or "act on behalf of" the poor, but the poor are left on the sidelines. A better approach would be acknowledge the capacities of poor people and to include them in the struggle. The poor can say in the end: "we have done it ourselves." The results would be "good news" on a number of levels.
Community organization has deep roots biblically. Ancient Israel organized itself into tribes with distinct boundaries, headquarters and methodologies to care for the less fortunate. "Cities of Refuge" were established for individuals who were trying to escape vigilante justice. "Storehouse cities" were established as central places to store grain and other needs of the community. Temples themselves were places where the ancient Israelites were able to give of their tithes and offerings, which were in turn given to those who needed it, or kept as a safeguard against famine. Other practices such as Jubilee, which forgave debts and allowed lands to return to the original overseers every fifty years, or gleaning, the practice that allowed the poor to pick grain or produce on the edge of the field were tolerated.
One of the great community organization stories is found in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. There, exiles from the Babylonian captivity were returning home, and the problem of rebuilding the community structures arose. Nehemiah heard that the nobles and officials had set up a stiff tax so that the people were "having to pledge our fields, our vineyards, and our houses in order to get grain during the famine…. We are having to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay the king's tax. Now … we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to others." (Neh. 5: 3-5).
Nehemiah's response to this outcry was to take the complaints of the people to the nobles, and to seek a repeal of their taxes, and a forgiveness of the debts of the people due to the heaviness of the taxes and the high interest extracted on loans of money to the people. He then proceeded to organize the community so that the walls of the city were rebuilt, the temple restored, and that the community was organized so as to protect itself and to operate efficiently. This was followed by some religious reforms such as the reinstitution of the Sabbath and the separation of returning exiles from intermarriage with people of other nations who worshipped other gods. The restored city and its people then moved to another economy, not based on taxes and usury that benefited the rich and oppressed the poor, but they developed a political economy whereby the needs of the people would be provided for from a common treasury. This was an economic and political transformation.
For the people of God and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine and oil to the storerooms where the vessels of the sanctuary are, and where the priests that minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers are. We will not neglect the house of our God (Neh. 10:39).
Inasmuch as Nehemiah organized a restored Jerusalem to meet its economic and religious goals, so too the Apostle Paul in the New Testament set out to organize communities. Biblical scholar Gerd Theissen has argued that Paul's primary role was that of a "community organizer." This is not quite the same notion as community organizers have today, but in the sense of organizing institutions throughout the cities of the ancient Roman world. For Theissen, the difference between the wandering charismatics of Jesus' day and the "community organizers" of St. Paul's was the urban context. For Theissen, and indeed in the historic experience of the early church, Paul established churches as institutions, and within those institutions appointed and trained leadership, including bishops, elders, deacons and pastors. For political and historical reasons, these churches avoided conflict with the authorities around it. They were new, small and lacked the power and resources to successfully "speak truth to power." However, their preference for accommodation (Romans 13) quickly gave way to animosity because of the church's practice of hospitality to the poor, and the refusal to accept Roman authority (Revelation 13). The state became the beast.
Community organizers today build more than institutions, they build community. Community organization in theory and practice began in Chicago. At their best, community organizations represent local constituencies, and provide a vehicle for "people's organizations" to act on their own behalf. Many community organizations today are church-based, and have sought to bring together people of faith to address local community issues. Churches are natural constituencies for community organizations for several reasons. First, they generally have values and concerns for the community around it. Second, they generally represent that community, especially if the church draws from the community for its own membership. Third, they generally have resources that can be tapped in any community organization effort. These resources include people, and also the space, technology, finances and connections with other organizations and networks.
Yet, the language of community organizations is not the usual language of the churches. Organizers frequently talk about issues of power and self-interest, when churches sometimes talk about meekness and the importance of charity. However, organizers know that charity cannot be divorced from justice, and that churches sometimes need to take tough and controversial stands to confront the powers when they act unbecomingly.
For Walter Wink, the powers included the rulers, authorities, thrones, dominions, and the like. They were supernatural elements, but often were embodied in the institutions, systems and social structures that human beings faced everyday. For Wink, the powers are at once, good, fallen, yet redeemable. For William Stringfellow, the powers are those we contend with on a daily basis. The problem is that the powers can easily oppress and dominate. For Stringfellow, the powers are not just quaint, but are real obstacles for a just and whole society.
And if some of these seem quaint, transposed into contemporary language they lose quaintness and the principalities become recognizable and all too familiar: they include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols. Thus, the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Hudson Institute, or Consolidated Edison, or the Diners Club or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamstes Union are all principalities. So are capitalism, Maoism, humanism, Mormonism, astrology, the Puritan work ethic, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism, plus many, many more-sports, sex, any profession or discipline, technology, money, the family-beyond any respect of full enumeration. The principalities and powers are legion.
In the letter to the Ephesians, it seems clear that the power of God in our lives, the power of a God who can resurrect the dead, is ample enough power to transcend other forms of power. Paul prays that the Ephesian church might come to understand
…the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come (Eph. 1-19-21).
The issue for us, is not that the Bible doesn't speak of power, but how the church deals with power in tangible ways. Power is really a neutral construct. It is merely the ability to do something, or the ability to marshal resources to carry out a task or an objective. I like the way Saul Alinsky sums up the use of power.
Pascal…observed that… "justice without power is impotent; power without justice is tyranny." St. Ignatius…(said): "to do a thing well a man needs power and competence." We could call the roll of all who have played out their parts in history and find the word power, not a substitute word, used in their speech and writings. It is impossible to conceive of a world devoid of power; the only choice of concepts is between organized and unorganized power. Mankind has progressed only through learning how to develop and organize instruments of power in order to achieve order, security, morality, and civilized live itself, instead of a sheer struggle for physical survival. Every organization known to man, from government down, has had only one reason for being-that is, organization for power in order to put into practice or promote its common purpose.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing churches is not that they don't understand power, but that they feel they don't have enough of it to make a difference, so it becomes easier to abdicate from the fight. Michael Lerner calls this "surplus powerlessness." Surplus powerlessness is "our tendency to see ourselves as more powerless than we really are." And powerlessness corrupts, argues Lerner. It justifies inaction, cynicism, fatalism, and resignation to events thought unchangeable. Surplus powerlessness renders the individual helpless, and sanctions an otherworldly spirituality that divorces itself from the created order.
It is this surplus powerlessness that kicks in whenever we imagine challenging the ethos of selfishness, materialism, and cynicism in our contemporary world. This ethos seems so big, so built into the ontological structure of necessity, so much a part of the way the world "really is," on the one hand-and we seem to ourselves inadequate and ill-prepared to take on such a world-transformative task, on the other hand-that we fall back into cynicism and despair whenever someone tells us that things could be really different.
For Mary Gonzalez, a community organizer and trainer for the Gamaliel Foundation and the Metropolitan Alliance for Congregations in Chicago, organizing is about "agitation." Not "irritation," but agitation, challenging people to tap into their assets and capacities, and responsibilities as Christians and as citizens. For Gonzalez, churches are not places to abdicate or run from power, but are places to mobilize power and to act on issues of concern in the real world outside its walls and networks. Christians may pray for the "world as it should be," but we must act in the "world as it is" as faithful and courageous followers of the Christ who challenge the powers and welcome the stranger in our own time. Churches that are involved in community organizing do so for a number of reasons. Some act out of a call for justice, or the responsibility of being caring and active agents in the community. Some act because their constituency is directly affected by issues that exist locally or beyond. Others act because their interests are at stake, threatened by the actions of the "powers that be." Whatever the motivation, churches have been on the forefront of Civil Rights issues and many other human rights issues. They have fought for stop signs to prevent accidents, they have taken stands with regard to the death penalty, many now arguing for a moratorium on such given the plethora of coerced confessions and DNA evidence that has exonerated scores of people once consigned to Death Row. Churches have organized to challenge toxic waste dumping on the Southeast side of Chicago. They have worked with gangs in Los Angeles, and homeless people in Washington D.C. They have protested U.S funding of Central American dictatorships. They have often been on the side of justice, and have been emissaries for peace.
Organizing is at its best when it involves those most effected by issues that impact a neighborhood in direct action. It is an effective way to train leaders. It is also an effective strategy for church's social ministry as well as a successful "church growth" strategy. Mostly, organizing is important because it is a proven way for an organized constituency to address issues of common concern with results that are tangible. Church-based organizations are not only "schools of democracy," but tangible ways to build the kingdom of God on earth.
Churches Rebuild the City through Community Economic Development
Another model of social change that churches have been involved with in cities and elsewhere is "community economic development." For Bethel New Life, the community development agency of the Bethel Lutheran Church in Chicago, their mission statement--is a verse of scripture!
If you put an end to oppression, to every gesture of contempt, and to every evil word; if you give food to the hungry and satisfy those who are in need, then the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon. And I will always guide you and satisfy you with good things. I will keep you strong and well. You will be like a garden hat has plenty of water, like a spring of water that never goes dry. Your people will rebuild what has long been in ruins, building again on the old foundations. You will be known as the people who rebuilt the walls, who restored the ruined houses (Isaiah 58:9-12).
Many community development agencies today are "faith-based" institutions. Like Bethel, these church-based organizations are recognizing that they too have a responsibility to the economic well-being of the poor in their midst. These are the neighbors with whom they are building community. A few years ago, Raul Raymundo, Director of The Resurrection Project (TRP) in Pilsen said to one of my classes: "we are not just building houses in Pilsen, we are building community." Community development organizations such as Bethel or TRP recognize that their responsibility to people is not just cerebral or in a narrow sense, "spiritual"-- but embraces all of life.
For Mary Nelson of Bethel New Life, their mission is to "weave a healthy, sustainable community on Chicago's West Side." Given recent trends in cities toward regentrification and the accompanying problem of displacement, many churches have chosen to take a stand for the total well-being of their community and the residents who live and worship there. Like many other church-based CED's, Bethel has taken a stand to reclaim and protect the land and housing for low-income residents. It recognized that it is not enough to address the temporary problems facing poor people through the delivery of social services. Rather, longer term issues such as affordable housing and training for jobs is necessary so that those who are poor are able to act independently and self-sufficiently. To date, Bethel has built over 800 units of low-income housing, and has provided employment opportunity for hundreds.
Models of the church's public presence that emphasize organizing and economic development have as their goals independence and freedom for people (empowerment), not a relationship of dependency and clientage. Rather than national political policies that have rendered low-income communities either dependent or wholly neglected, community-based organizations, many of which are church-based, make a difference by empowering local constituencies to act on their own faith, to see their capacities, and to realize their own community goals.
The Isaiah passage is a good one for those who seek to build a foundation for social justice work in the city and elsewhere. Isaiah challenges those who think that the solution to problems is found in private acts of charity and fasting. Rather, the call for churches is to step out and welcome the homeless into one's midst as fellow communicants. The call is to end oppression in every form, challenging social structures that render people poor and powerless with new structures that model out justice with compassion. The goal is to rebuild the streets and foundations of the city so that cities and communities everywhere can become more livable.
In Jeremiah 29:7, the exiles of Babylon were encouraged to "Seek the peace of the city, for in its peace you will find your peace." This is hard for us if we see ourselves as exiles, or as "resident aliens." To seek the peace (shalom) of the city means that we see ourselves as residents within the culture. Further, the word shalom in Hebrew means more than just peace. It can be translated as prosperity, harmony, justice, salvation, and deliverance as well as peace. For Jeremiah, the Israelites may be strangers to Babylon, but they were to take Babylon as their home. They were to build houses and live in them, plant gardens and give their children in marriage.
There are numerous models of church practice in communities that can be found in most places. Churches by definition build social capital, and establish networks and relationships so that communities are able to act on their own capacities and dreams. Historically, churches have delivered out essential social services, so that the basic needs for shelter, food and clothing are met. Today, churches are also involved in community organizing, community economic development, and even electoral politics as a way to reshape the social order that looks more like what we believe God wants for human society, a society characterized by a new prophetic spirituality that shows itself in the pursuit of justice with compassion.
For Dutch Reformed theologian and politician, Abraham Kuyper, Christians cannot run from culture or from the world's problems. Rather, we must reclaim our role in the world as stewards of the earth, as shepherds of the created order. If the world belongs to God as God's creation, then there is nothing that escapes our sight and responsibility. We are "salt and light" in the world, as the Gospel says. To be salt means that we function as a preserving agent. To be the light means we know enough from scripture to be able to show the way to a more peaceable city. For Kuyper, it means that we must operate from some form of "common grace" in the world. Just as Christian faith stems from a profound particularity anchored in the Incarnation, it also reaches with a universal appeal to the whole created order due to common grace. Because of common grace, there is nothing that escapes the churches reach or responsibility.
And for our relation to the world; the recognition that in the whole world the curse is restrained by grace, that the life of the world is to be honored in its independence, and that we must, in every domain, discover the treasures and develop the potencies hidden by God in nature and in human life.