Tremendous Resource: The Gospel of Shalom: A Justice Reading of Scripture

Dr. Robert Linthicum has just made available for downloading the complete three year cycle of his “The Gospel of Shalom: A Justice Reading of the Lectionary Scripture”  This is based on his 48 years of study of  how the Scripture deals with the issues of social justice. Reading along for the past year has changed my theology and given me a much better understanding of the problems in my community and the Church’s role in responding to those problem. Evangelicals please don’t be afraid this is a thoroughly solid evangelical work.That expresses both aspects of loving God and loving your neighbor.

The work is available in PDF downloads based on the lectionary year.

This summer he plans to release Truly Strategic Scriptures Avoided by the Lectionary, which I am looking forward to.

Anyone who wants a solid theology perspective on social justice issues should check out his website.

Emergency Fund to Help Japanese Churches in Earthquake/tsunami relief

As the Japanese government coordinates relief efforts, Food for the Hungry FH is working with our Japan International Food for the Hungry JIFH partner and other ministries already on the ground to provide assistance. FH seeks to strengthen local churches as they meet the needs of their communities. Please pray for these churches and JIFH Click here to donate.

via Tsunami hits Japan killing hundreds.

Article Link: ESA Irrevelant–and Deadly–Cuts in Foreign Assistance

As I was visiting hospitals and health huts in Senegal, I was also receiving e-mailed updates on House GOP budget cuts. The Global Fund, down 40 percent. Child survival programs, which include anti-malaria efforts, down 10 percent. AIDS relief, down 8 percent. Development assistance, down 30 percent.These reductions were intended to be symbolic, but what do they symbolize? Fiscal responsibility? Hardly. No one can reasonably claim that the budget crisis exists because America spends too much on bed nets and AIDS drugs. … Claiming courage or credit for irrelevant cuts in foreign assistance is a net subtraction from public seriousness on the deficit. So, do these cuts symbolize the Republican rejection of fuzzy-headed liberalism? Actually, the main initiatives on malaria and AIDS were created under Republican leadership.

via The Sider Center at Eastern University.

Article Link:Urban Pilgrims and Pioneers: Industry, Unions, Jesus and the Blue Collar Worker – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org

The liberal-fundamentalist debate still rages in urban America. Likewise, the working class still suffers from the same instability that plagued them a century ago. As fewer and fewer working class employees are needed by industries because of mechanization and recession, economic struggles will increase for these families. Seminary-trained pastors look to the suburban populations of the America to build and fill the churches of the 1990s and (among many other urban populations) the working class neighborhood is largely ignored.

As conservative seminaries debate what constitutes evangelism – soul-winning or social reform – decades worth of urban souls are lost due to suburban wealth, indecision, and complacency. As urban problems snowball, it is imperative that Christians decide that evangelism does indeed constitute both soul-winning and social reform. This will ultimately require agonizing self-sacrifice on the part of wealthy middle class Christians. Evangelists and evangelicals must agree that these two aspects of evangelism are not mutually exclusive.

Finally, as American industries migrate to the Third World to recreate the conditions they imposed on urban America a century ago, Christian evangelicals must not repeat the mistakes of the past. If we fail to heed the lessons that American urban industrialization has left of us, our millions of dollars and hours of overseas missionary work will be in vain. Our evangelization efforts might leave behind a number of churches and believers but we will also leave behind the exploited and confused victims of a capitalistic society, numb and properly inoculated against the gospel of Christ.

via Urban Pilgrims and Pioneers: Industry, Unions, Jesus and the Blue Collar Worker – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.

article Link: Why We Do Micro-Savings: Micro-savings vs. Micro-finance

This is a very interesting article that presents a different take on micro-finance and a solution to some of the problems associated with it.

The article is from a blog at Food For the Hungry.

Microfinance is an idea that’s been around for some years. Basically, you lend poor people, who would normally be unable to get credit, small amounts of money, in the hope that they start businesses with them and thereby lift themselves out of poverty. The amounts are small and people don’t need traditional security (savings, property, regular income) to prove they can pay it back.

But the unpleasant truth is that credit still needs to be repaid, otherwise none of the institutions which offer it would still be in business – when in fact, they’re amongst the biggest organisations in Bangladesh. Microfinance is an enormous business – nowhere more so than in Bangladesh, where it was born in the 70′s.

via Why We Do Micro-Savings.

Article Link: RELEVANT Magazine – Can We Really Solve Poverty?

The president of World Vision explains why poverty is getting worse—and how this generation can stop it.

Our world is increasingly divided between rich and poor. When I was born, the richest countries were 35 times as wealthy as the poorest. Half a century later, it stood at 75 to 1. The divide more than doubled on the watch of my generation—the one that vowed to end war and save the planet.

via RELEVANT Magazine – Can We Really Solve Poverty?.

Article Link: the inconsistency for the call of civility « eugene cho

Rev, Cho makes some excellent points including these:

But going back to the question and conversation of civility, I wholehearted agree that we – as a larger society (and as a Christian community) need to learn how to be civil:

We need to learn how to listen.

We need to speak without shouting and screaming.

We need to not to accuse and attack.

We need to stop demonizing one another or prominent leaders.

We need to be better informed.

We need to agree to give space to disagree. It’s ok.

We need to learn where we agree and see how we can work together.

Please read the rest here

via the inconsistency for the call of civility « eugene cho.

Quote: Poverty & Inequality

More than 1.4 billion people live in poverty so extreme that they can barely survive, and around 25,000 people die from hunger each day whilst a new billionaire is created every second day. The call for a global safety net has never been so urgent – and compels the international community to transform economic priorities and guarantee the universal securing of basic human needs.

via Poverty & Inequality.

Apt Comment

From Real Clear Politics

We all know the end of the story as it’s now being written with an overpriced rescue of the banks. When it comes time for health care reform, education funding, infrastructure rebuilding, and (heaven forbid) help for the world’s poor and dying people, there will be no fiscal space. Budgets will be tight. Spending that helps make rich guys richer while leaving the poor to die of hunger and disease seems to be par for the course in our Wall-Street-besotted public policy.

Last week I stood in a village in Africa where the mines had closed and people had nothing to eat. Pleading eyes looked into mine. Those are the eyes that I still see when I read Nocera’s flippant acceptance of shoveling taxpayer funds to the undeserving rich.
Jeffrey D. Sachs

Fantastic Article from Global Future.

I posted as a page an article by Ms. Ann Pettifor from issue Number 1 of 2009 of Global Future by World Vision. I think she really hits the nail on the head and says much better than I ever could how to both view and address the international economic crisis. To read the article go here.

Editorial: Suggestion to Governors who refuse extra money for unemployment

The governors of several states have decided to refuse money from the federal stimulus program which provides extra money for unemployment benefits to the people of their states as a matter of principle, they say. Principle, really? Whether one agrees or disagrees with the details of the stimulus certainly additional benefits to workers who were laid-off due to know fault of their own should not be questioned. I know of no one on unemployment who is living high on the hog. (When I was unemployed we lost all of our savings and have never really recovered, unemployment is no picnic.)

But for these governors who state their reason is principle I have a simple request. As a man or woman of principle you should be willing to live out your principles. Therefore I suggest that they voluntarily cut their salary to that which it would be on unemployment and pay rent for their governors mansion, give up all their perks and see if they can live as a person on unemployment, and then of course after their unemployment expires live off their own savings for the balance of their term. To me that would then show them to be a person of principle.  It is very easy to have principles that only affect other people.

I won’t hold my breath.

The Common Good

Mat 22:36-40
(36) “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
(37) And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
(38) This is the great and first commandment.
(39) And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
(40) On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Mar 12:28-34
(28) And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
(29) Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
(30) And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
(31) The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
(32) And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.
(33) And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
(34) And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Rom 13:8-10
(8) Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
(9) For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
(10) Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Gal 5:13-14
(13) For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
(14) For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jas 2:8
(8) If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

All the above Scriptures are from the ESV.

It seems very clear that according to Jesus the teaching of the whole Old Testament (the Law and Prophets) is summed up in two  Great Commandments; to love God and love our neighbor. As Christians it seems to me that all of our actions should be focused toward those two ends.

I am deeply concerned as a Christian first and foremost but also as a citizen of the U.S. about the current state of our country and the world.  I believe we are at a crossroads. Our economic systems has broken and taken the whole world with it.  Our world today is interconnected  and interlinked in ways that were beyond imagination just 30 years ago. But because of that inter-connectivity it means that due to the problems here in the US people all over the world are suffering.

At this crossroads we have  two choices. To return to the status quo, to repair the broken system that we have, or to chart a new course.  I  believe we need to chart a new course.  The two main  economic systems capitalism and socialism both are seriously flawed in the same  way. For both systems to work  each person must put other people first. In  capitalism in order that  all share in the benefits those at the top must limit their own acquisition of capital and share with others. In socialism each must work hard so that others are not doing all the work while all share all the benefits.

We need to work together to find a practical  economic system that works together that is based on the common good. I admit in a world of selfishness this seems like a daunting if not impossible task. But I believe this is a place where the Christian Church can take the lead.

I am not talking about a political system I am talking about an economic system. People often confuse the two. Democracy is the best political system and where there are a large number of people a representative democracy can work well, if those elected to represent the people are held accountable to do just that.

Our current system broke because it is based on greed, plain and simple.  Adam Smith said the unseen hand of peoples self interest would regulate the market. The problem is that it is the unseen hand a a comparatively few people that regulates the market. Both political parties share the blame for the current mess. This most recent economic disaster has come about primarily because of deregulation of the markets that took place both under the Clinton and Bush regimes. I am troubled that President Obama has surrounded himself with people from both those administrations that helped to cause the current crisis to fix the crisis.

We also must not think just of our own nation. After decades  of seeing decreases in world poverty this most recent crisis along with the food crisis has plunged more people into poverty world-wide.  Part of the food crisis was caused by the commodification of food.  (I am deeply afraid of the push to make water a commodity as well.)

To be honest I doubt that enough people will care enough to work together to find a fair and just economic system. I imagine temporary repairs will be made to the current system, after all it benefits the rich and powerful and they have no desire to see the system changed. So what should we do. There is a popular phrase bandied about a lot lately. I believe it is from Ghandi but it is: Be the change you want to see. I believe there is more than a grain of truth in that statement. If we as individual Christians or even non-Christians who truly care about our neighbors,  and the parable of the Good Samaritan shows that our neighbors are not just those of our own country or ethnic group, begin to make sure that all our actions including our economic actions demonstrate a love for all we will at least be headed in the right direction.

Although my blog has very few readers I intend to try to focus on the common good. After all we are not fine, because so many others are not fine.