Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the NY Times who is famous for being an all around good guy and doing stuff like personally buying a freeing sex slaves, wrote a column on Wednesday about how in addition to not agreeing with conservative values, liberals don't really understand them, either. The column is pretty interesting, but I'm always leery when people start asserting that we are hardwired towards philosophical attitudes like he does towards the end though. What is more serious, though, (as usual) is the commentary from the blokes on the internet.
Aside from the clear demonstration of the fluid definitions of "liberal' and "conservative" and the repeated assertions from each camp that you must be brain dead in order to belong to the other, the thing that jumped out to me most is the attitude repeated by more than one poster that giving money to churches isn't really charity because churches don't really care for the poor. This is troubling for a couple of reasons: there is a fundamental misunderstanding of people out there of what churches and other religious communities missions' actually are or those communities are not fulfilling them.
Make no mistake: caring for the poor is absolutely and unmistakably a mission of the Christian church. It is also a mission of just about every other religious community as well, but the tenor of the commentary of the article is largely American and largely focused at Christians, so I will focus on that from here on out. Helping the poor, though, is intrinsically wrapped up in Christian identity, starting with the Old Testament. (Leviticus 19:10, 23:22, Deuteronomy 15:7, 15:11, 24:14-15, 24:17-18, Matthew 6:1-3, Luke 4:18-21, 14:7-14. I could go on...) One specific example, though, is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) which is an excellent summary of the position and the inspiration for a fun Cake song.
In the parable, Jesus, after His return, will separate people into two categories -- sheep and goats. The sheep will be blessed and given the inheritance of the Kingdom of God because "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink..." there are a few other needs that the sheep satisfied, but ultimately, it comes down to the fact that they took care of the earthly needs of those who were needy. The goats, on the other hand, are cursed and rejected from the inheritance because they did not do those things. "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
Now, if the churches are not doing those things, then we are failing at one of our missions. If people don't know that this is part of what Christians are charged to do, then we are also failing on another mission -- one so important that it is known as the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) -- to teach "all nations" what Christ taught. I hope it's the second one, because that's easier to fix.
2 comments:
Love the post, Brandon. I always enjoy your perspective.
I want to challenge you slightly on this one, however. I'd argue that fundamentally the mission of the church is not wrapped up in caring for the needy. The mission of the church is to preach and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, while one of the responsibilities of *Christians* is to care for the needy. I acknowledge this is a complex issue and there there's room for disagreement on this between genuine Christians, but I at least want to point out that it's worth making the distinction between responsibilities charged to Christians and those charged specifically to the church. Serving the needy is an important thing for Christians to do, and it's absolutely something the church should be teaching and possibly even facilitating. But it's tempting for the church itself to get caught up in it as one of its primary goals (especially since it's inoffensive to non-believers) while woefully neglecting its true purpose. Indeed, I think this is an error seen in many churches today.
That's an interesting question. First, I want to say that I hoped my closing about the Great Commission did make the point about the importance of teaching the content of the gospel to others, and if not, then I can reiterate that now -- of course, that is the most important and responsibility we are charged with as Christians.
The contrast between the responsibilities of the church and Christians is a topic I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about. I think I must confess I don't know where those lines are or should be all that well, and default to Matthew 18:20 (Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I with them) and feel like the church is simply a group of Christians and most of these Biblical responsibilities apply to both in some proportion.
Good to hear from you and know you're still out there, Zinck.
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