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Christianity Today, December, 2007 |

How We Fight Poverty

U.N. Millennium Development Goals are good—as far as they go.

A Christianity Today editorial | posted 12/05/2007 08:29AM

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God has a single mission to our world, a mission that involves the reconciliation of all things. But our evangelical dna is such that we almost always tell the Good News of Jesus Christ first. This is the historic pattern. We sense a call to go somewhere and share the Good News. While there, we spot a serious problem—poverty, hunger, illiteracy—and our impulse is to solve it. Decades ago, the late Bob Pierce was doing evangelistic work in Asia and noticed the plight of orphans. He returned home and raised money for those orphans, leading eventually to the creation of World Vision.

Evangelicals have been addressing the MDGs for generations: when we see illiterate people, it is our natural instinct to educate them. When we see sick people, we try to heal them. When we see poor people, we want to empower them economically. This is what scholars mean when they say evangelicals are "activists." We get stuff done.

A globally coordinated effort to reduce poverty calls for broad-based partnerships. We did this in working globally against religious persecution and sex-trafficking—two areas for which we've received many plaudits. We can do it again in fighting the national policies and politics that keep too many families in a cycle of generational poverty.

Yes, these broad partnerships require us to leave our comfort zones. But as we learn to partner with others, they will have to learn to partner with us as well, accepting our commitment to make the proclamation of the Good News about Jesus the foundation of our working for justice. We fight poverty through the agencies of the church on behalf of Christ for the reconciliation of everyone—not only to one another, but especially to God.

Related Elsewhere:

The Record Online and TitueOneNine have blog posts on the prominence of the MDG's at the Diocese of Michigan's convention.

David Neff blogged about the meeting between Moon and evangelicals.

Other editorials and articles on missions are available on our site.

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December 2007, Vol. 51, No. 12

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Jason

Posted: December 12, 2007 9:35 AM

How long will we continue to polarize proclaiming and demonstrating the Gospel? I heard a missionary doctor tell us beautiful and inspiring stories of bringing health care and treatments to remote parts of Peru thus improving maternal health, and drastically reducing child mortality rates--i.e. children stopped dying from diarrhea and other preventable causes. Then, after telling such a great story of the Gospel in action he had to qualify their work and say, "don't worry, we preach the Gospel as well". I was hit with the absurdity--how far have strayed from the life and teachings of Jesus when we have to distinguish our "healing the sick" from sharing the gospel. I pray that through movements like the Micah Challenge we return to our Lords example of where our proclamation of the Gospel and our demonstration of the transforming power of the Gospel are united.

Marco Grimaldo

Posted: December 06, 2007 2:15 PM

Thank you so much for putting these important meetings into good context - not just for evangelicals, but for all Christians. I believe that our first call is to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ and to share the joy of knowing Jesus with others. I'm a life-long Presbyterian and in my life, I have come to appreciate that we can share the Good News through Word and Sacrament, but perhaps equally powerful is when we live out the Good News for all to see. I no longer see much distinction between the two and find it difficult to appreciate one without the other. Whether I am helping someone through my church or in my volunteer efforts, or if I am calling my member of Congress to be sure that she supports efforts that we as a nation can take to end poverty, I think the result is the same and in furtherance of the Gospel. Moreover, I am convinced that it will require a little from all of us, at church, at home, through our national leaders if we hope to really make a difference.

CabbyDear

Posted: December 06, 2007 1:51 PM

Focusing on poverty is not and should not ever be the primary goal of the church. Jesus, himself said that we would always have the poor with us. The primary call of the church is to "make disciples of all nations". Taking care of the poor should be the result of the outworking of the Holy Spirit within a church body...an act of obedience to His Spirit rather than simple human agreement that something needs to be done. Where His Spirit leads, there will be provision for the workers and those who are in need, both physically and spiritually. An outreach to the poor is a kingdom-building effort rather than simply finding and filling a need.

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