What Should We Expect From the Church?

"If the Church was doing it's job, we wouldn't have [insert world crisis here]!"

Now, I've seen the brackets above filled in with many different things: poverty, sex-trafficking, institutionalized injustice, domestic violence, hunger -- you name it! What is interesting to me, though, is that I am seeing a growing trend of people in my generation (both inside and outside of the church) condemning the Church as having lost its mission based on the continued presence of certain evils in the world.  If we're honest, most of these reactions stem from seeing the Church's nose were people think it doesn't belong, such as "The Church needs to get out of politics and get back to feeding the poor!" But it does raise a few important questions worth exploring:

"Has the Church (and we'll just say the American Church for now for the sake of simplicity) failed in its mission?"

Which, of course, raises the even more fundamental question:

"What is the mission of the Church?"

OR

"What should we expect from the Church" -- how and to what extent should the world look different because the Church is active in the world and fulfilling its mission?



I came across a quote recently that I think is helpful in thinking through this issue:

"I imagine some problems are not as bad as they could be because of Christian programs and witness ... Do we assume police officers are worthless because we still have crime or parents are pointless because kids still do stupid things? Not at all.  Why then do we assume that the existence of unmet need or ongoing tragedy in the world is unassailable proof of the church's failure?"

-- Kevin DeYoung

This quote makes a very important point: the continued presence of evil in the world is not an indictment against the Church, for the Church's job has never been to solve the problem of evil, but rather to faithfully proclaim that the Solution is coming.  Christians are heralds of the coming Kingdom (the full realization of the reign of God on Earth) in which the King Himself will finally put a stop to all evil.

Is this to say that the Church simply twiddles its thumbs and pontificates on eternal things until Christ returns?  Absolutely not! Part of proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom is displaying its principles and values before the world as a witness to its power.  So, we seek justice as a foretaste of the true justice that is coming.  We feed and clothe the poor as a foretaste of the One who meets every need.  We free the slaves as a foretaste of the freedom to come.  You get the idea.

Hold on, everyone.  We sent Jesus out for more bread  just a little less than 2,000 years ago.  

I'm sure He'll be back soon.  No need to ask us for help.

All this is very different, however, from saying that we are building the Kingdom or bringing about the Kingdom on earth (a teaching called post-millennialism, for you nerds out there).  And this is where we can get in trouble about our expectations for the Church, if we are not careful.  There will always be poverty, famine, and various sorts of evil in the world regardless of how faithful the Church is in her mission.  These are the result of fundamental flaws in human nature rather than objective, external problems to the human race that just need to swallow up a few more man hours, dollars, or other resources before they are finally solved.

Pictured: the greatest youth group summer mission trip EVER!

There are plenty of local churches and individual Christians being faithful heralds of the Kingdom in both word and deed ... even if we can all point to some that could be doing much more.

If you are not a Christian, come join us in ministering to the needy, fighting against social injustice, etc, and listen to why we're doing it!

If you are a Christian, how's your heralding going?

THINKING "BIBLICALLY" ABOUT POVERTY

Poverty is kind of a big buzzword in Christian circles these days, although it's usually dressed up with angrier terms like "welfare abuse" or with sexier labels like "social justice."

A gentleman keeps his eyes above the poverty line, sir!

Now on a very general level it seems that the Bible gives two basic reasons for poverty. First, poverty is sometimes due to personal laziness, sloth, ill-gotten wealth, etc. It's not that poverty is necessarily a punishment or curse from God, but rather that poverty is the natural result of certain poor personal choices. Second, poverty is sometimes due to oppression from the prevailing power system, as those with money and authority choose to abuse and misuse those under them for their own ends.

Speaking as an historian (did you catch the shameless appeal to some sort of authority there?), it seems that American Christianity, has never done a very good job of keeping this balanced view of Scripture when looking at poverty in its own backyard. Christians have generally focused on one of these Scriptural explanations of poverty to the exclusion of the other.

Some Christians have bought into the lie that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor because they as immoral, lazy, etc. Charity to the poor is somewhat pointless in this view as the problem of poverty is largely a matter of personal morality and work ethic, or rather lack thereof.

Cause of death was determined as "being too lazy to really want to eat."

Beginning with the Social Gospel, and seemingly reincarnated in the emergent and other "progressive" movements of today, some Christians began to see poverty solely as a systemic issue. Thus, the Christian response to poverty is to "fix to system" -- overcome economic inequality, injustice, etc.

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"

The problem is that both perceptions are skewed. Scripture seems to teach that poverty is definitely a systemic issue (since sin itself is a systemic issue), but also that poverty is due to the sinfulness of individuals at times. Indeed, sometimes both factors may be at work within the same person! So why does it matter how we view poverty? I think that only a balanced view of poverty allows us to respond correctly.

My point here is that neither of these figures represents "the poor." Also, playing with action figures is Biblical ...

When we realize that poverty is partially the result of institutionalized injustice and inequality in society, then we know that we have to respond on a social and ultimately systemic scale. However, when we realize that poverty for some (please note that I am saying for "some." Please don't jump in here screaming about neo-colonialism. Read. The. "Some.") is the result of bad choices exacerbated by the systemic nature of poverty, then it requires a little bit different approach than what I am currently hearing thrown around in most Christian circles. It means not only that we have to change the system, but that people must change, as well. Christians must preach the gospel not only as hope to some in poverty, but as repentance to some in poverty, as well. A balanced, "biblical" view of poverty will lead to action that will enfranchise the poor as member's of a new community, rather than coddle them as mere victims of circumstance or dismiss them as being outside the concern of God.

This cute puppy is supposed to distract you, in case anything I said in the last paragraph made you angry.

Now, I realize that this is far short of a "theology of poverty," a solution to poverty, or anything of the sort. Hopefully, however, it helps provide some perspective both for those who want to use the Bible to inform their views on things like poverty, as well as for those who have heard Christians talking about poverty and walked away scratching your head (or maybe pulling out your hair).