BLOG 7/11/13. IS THE CHURCH SILENT ON ECONOMIC INJUSTICE?

BLOG 7/11/13. IS THE CHURCH SILENT ON ECONOMIC INJUSTICE: MAMMON?

I grew up in the deeply segregated South, and until I was in my twenties never heard the church speak to the enormous problem of racial injustice (though there were some remarkable voices out there doing so). The church was silent because it was ‘loaded’ and ‘controversial.’ I am now questioning whether the church in these United States is currently far too silent on the subject of the looming problem of economic injustice?

It is not that this is the ‘cause du jour’ of some group of progressives—it is staring us in the face as the vast preponderance of the wealth of the nation is controlled more and more at those with the most, while the middle class struggles to survive, and proud middle-class families are forced to resort to food stamps—it is the context in which the Christian church is to live as the incarnation of God’s New Creation/God’s Kingdom.

Has mammon become the interpretive script that reinterprets Jesus’ teachings? It was he, you remember, who named mammon as the major competitor to God: “You cannot serve mammon.” I’m just raising the question. Before us in the news was the Occupy Wall Street movement which named the crisis and kept it before us for those weeks. Whose responsibility are the helpless poor? Remember that it was Jesus (in the Lukan version of the Sermon on the Mount/Sermon on the Plain) who said: “Blessed are you poor. Woe to you rich.” It was after his encounter with Jesus that the corrupt Zacchaeus said that he would give half his goods he would give to the poor, in addition to restoring anything he had gained by fraud.

Who dares preach on this? When the 1% wealthy are comfortable in a church community that also contains struggling members of the 99%, it is both dangerous and controversial to raise this grim reality.

I quite well remember in my own career as a teaching pastor, when I came to a controversial issue in scripture, hearing that voice of darkness whispering in my ear: “Don’t touch that, it’ll get you into trouble.” But the Christian faith and the Christian community are called out of the dominion of darkness, and economic injustice, to be the demonstration of the light of God’s New Creation. It doesn’t matter that there are ‘members’ who depend on NASDAQ, or the Dow, for their sense of well-being, and who live in fine homes, and support the church budget.

Somehow there is an enormous disconnect from reality in all too much of the church on such issues. Some years ago, friend Ron Sider wrote the book, RICH CHRISTIANS IN A WORLD OF HUNGER, but those who read and celebrated it were not the rich, alas! (It’s still in print!)

I didn’t come across any major Christian groups celebrating the Occupy Wall Street movement, though someone ought to have. And we can affirm with great appreciation Warren Buffett and Bill Gates pledging to give their vast wealth to human need.

But I come back to the church.

About the closest I have come (in my limited exposure) was a pastor friend who tossed out (almost as a ‘throw-away’ comment): “If you’re driving a new Lexus and not tithing, you need to re-examine your discipleship.”

… to be continued (maybe).

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge