So here is my Uncle's response. He asks some great questions, makes some assertions that I don't agree with, and what not. But I seriously invite ya'll to take on his questions and let me know how you would answer them... I am continually amazed that my uncle, who may actually pursue his doctorate at LIBERTY UNIVERSITY, (blegh, yeck, gross..skin crawling) and I can have this conversation in love and it is still a dialogue even though we disagree on some very fundamental things. So, I applaud his openness and the way he is letting God move him.
I agree with what you are saying and, by the way, never apologize for taking a long time to answer complex questions or address important issues. The worship of Brevity is an American _expression of idolatry. My question is, how, as an evangelical almost fundamental pastor, do I lead my church to see that our very lifestyle – our love affair with lavish worship facilities, padded pews, air conditioned facilities, etc. – is a denial of the faith as it relates to the most needy of our nation and the world? And, to add to that, how do I come to see that my own lifestyle is no different from anyone else’s except for the fact that I expect the church to support me? This attitude is as deeply entrenched in the theology of American Christians now as slavery was in the antebellum South. How do we “establish justice” in a market place whose existence and prosperity are rooted in and supported by injustice? When I think of these things, I grow frustrated to the point of accepting the status quo as inevitable in a fallen world. That is until I am reminded that even though poverty and its causes and results may stem from the fall, as a follower of Christ, I am called to “give myself to the hungry.”
One of the barriers to involving conservative southern evangelicals in social justice is the dismal failure of the Government welfare system (government with a capital “G” is the newest god in the American pantheon. For an illustration of this phenomenon, look at the debacle of New Orleans after Katrina and the expectations the victims and the onlookers had of this deity.) People see that and conclude that the results will always be the same whenever the government, a church or anyone takes steps to lift people out of poverty. I can’t imagine that the “broad shouldered” city of Chicago would have a very different perspective given the horrible conditions of its south side slums and housing projects. How do we accomplish such change here, much less in Honduras or Togo?
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4 comments:
Wow, thanks for those links, jvpastor.
It's pretty cool that you can even have this sort of conversation with your uncle, Nicole.
hey no can do the concert. i don't get off til 5 so its too far. i was hoping it was on the border like an hour or something. y'all have fun!
This type of dialogue is very cool and I am impressed that family members can talk about this stuff.
With all due respect, however, I don't accept the assumption that "government is the newest god in the American pantheon," nor that the Katrina aftermath demonstrates this. I object on two grounds. 1) that those people who did not have cars can be faulted (or assumed to worship government) for needing some larger agency or organization to assist their exit. If they relied on the SBC, would that mean they worshiped this particular institution? Similarly, I don't think it is worship to assume that the Corps of Engineers take care of the levees--afterall, that is their role.
2) and perhaps more important, I think this argument displays a certain (and again I say so respectfully) middle class bias toward the poor. People who have money and access tend to falsely assume that they gained both by the sweat of their own brow. Ergo, the poor simply aren't working hard enough. In addition, welfare is denigrated but other, more hidden forms of assistance are ignored. Take me for example. I have three degrees--all from public universities. I have been over educated largely subsidized by tax payers. My father worked for various state and federal agencies, meaning that i had access to numerous subsidized services. I, and many like me, have the luxury of living where we choose because we have subsidized freeways, artificially (until recently, perhaps) cheap gasoline, and access to numerous avenues of credit (some subsidized, others simply because we live in a good area). We in the middle and upper class benefit from government perhaps more than those poorest. When we look at those taking food stamps or direct payment from the government, it is easy to separate from them, when in actuality, we all receive benefits from the government, but rarely in a direct check.
Touché, Streak.
Another interesting thing to note regarding the welfare system in our country is how much welfare our corporations receive. According to the Wall Street Journal and the General Accounting Office (an investigative arm of Congress now known as the Government Accountability Office), between 1996 and 2000, 61 percent of U.S. based corporations paid no federal income tax. For foreign-based corporations that operate in the States, the number was 71 percent. For those corporations with assets of $250 million or more gross receipts of at least $50 million, the numbers are reversed, with 71 percent of domestic corporations and 61 percent of large foreign corporations not contributing to federal income taxes. Worse, most of the corporations that do contribute pay at a rate of less than 5 percent, even though the base rate for corporations is supposed to be 35 percent. And we're not talking small businesses here. We're talking large corporations. That sounds suspiciously like welfare to me.
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