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.

Article Link:Declare His Glory in the Community (1976) – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org

As we rediscover the local body, we also rediscover that God wants to duplicate throughout all history that once-in-history manifestation of his love. He wants to put the same life and love of Jesus Christ in a church so that people can again see Christ.

via Declare His Glory in the Community (1976) – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.

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: The Urban Church and the Drug Culture – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org

The biblical motif which would best seem to address the urban community blighted by drugs is “hope.” Hope functions at two levels within Scripture. It refers at one level to Christ, the object of hope, and at another to the believer’s objective activity of hoping. The two are inextricably linked. We can define “hope” as follows, “. . . to look forward expectantly for God’s future activity.” #12# Hope is clearly linked with the inauguration of the Kingdom of God by Jesus. The coming of the Kingdom recorded in the Gospels is the coming of the reign of God over all humanity. It is brought uniquely by Christ since he himself is the King and proclaims a whole new order for the whole of humanity. The Kingdom is at once present and future.

via The Urban Church and the Drug Culture – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.

A Call to the City – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org

I recently stepped into a southern California neighborhood corner store, the kind of small store that’s replete with soda pop, beer, beef jerky, Tostitos and a minimal selection of over-priced canned goods. Four boys played on the entrance steps, the tallest pivoting his two-wheeled scooter underfoot while talking loudly and sternly to the others. I found out later from a woman on the street that the corner store sells alcohol to some of these children. As I nudged past them the smallest boy, shirtless and in yellow shorts, darted for the inside. As he crossed the store’s threshold, a colorful bill dropped from his hand and fell to the concrete, dollar-sized with ornate, interlaced designs, shapes and swirls, all of it printed in red.

I abruptly stopped. What’s this kid doing with foreign money? I thought. Where’d he find such a thing? But then I noticed the bold print across the face of the bill: “Food Coupon.” In that moment I felt innumerable emotions: a sense of irony, sadness, embarrassment at my own privilege. What I thought was exotic yet useless in this context, was actually this kid’s usual and useful fare to purchase food, even if only a bag of chips or a Coke.

Later, I reflected upon the juxtaposition of this African American child living in a low-income neighborhood reputable for drug dealing and gang conflicts, and myself, a middle-class white guy with money in my wallet and a secure plane ticket home, away from any corner store, drug activity, or any kind of urban setting at all if I so chose. I tote a credit card and have “purchasing power.” He fists a food coupon and is therefore allowed to eat today.

I do not pity that child, so much as I desire for him to live in security and justice. What must my response be, as a Christian, to this evident inequality?

read the rest at  A Call to the City – Articles – God’s Word – Urbana.org.