A Better Way to Confront Poverty?

The problems of the poor press hard upon us all. To make matters worse, we are told that the world population will double by the year 2000. Some political radicals exploit pockets of discontent in order to promote social revolution. Political opportunists seek a public image identified with the cresting material longings of the multitudes. And many churchmen are eager to respond not only to the basic need of personal salvation but also to the whole range of human need with greater sensitivity than in the past. Their desire to identify the Church with the cause of the needy is as it should be, and as Jesus would have it. But sometimes very commendable aims embrace highly questionable means.

The reliance of some Protestant leaders upon political techniques to gain their objectives gives cause for grave concern. Some churches seek grants as their preferred means of doing good works. The growing political engagement of the institutional church is now as much a matter of controversy as is the theological conflict attending ecumenical mergers. These concerns are not unrelated, in fact, since liberal churchmen increasingly spread the doctrine of “reconciliation” over the corporate church’s direct political engagement. Some have said plainly that it is more important to relieve poverty by any means possible than to preserve separation of church and state, and others assert that changing social structures is more important than proffering personal redemption.

For all his unquestionable compassion for the poor, Jesus championed no political or economic program. He beat no path to Pilate, struck up no deal with Caesar for aid to the needy. Instead, he left his disciples an example of personal concern, reinforced with the illustration of the Good Samaritan.

Some American churchmen seem almost eager to show the Marxists that the Church too can usher in social revolution. (Stalin was once a Greek Orthodox seminarian, but he at least knew the differences between Jesus and Marx, and didn’t pretend that they were next of kin. He left the Church to promote social revolution.)

If politically active clergymen encounter a wave of anti-clericalism, they have mainly themselves to blame. Many sound the cry: “The poor! The poor! Don’t you have compassion?” as a routine preamble to their endorsement of legislative proposals advancing welfare government. They evade answering such questions as: Is it sinful or immoral for one person to have less than another? Where is an ideal line to be drawn to show a just “more” or “less”? What dynamism is to assure a balancing of possessions? We see no virtue in bringing in a socialist revolution and calling it Christian.

Individual Christians ought indeed to be politically active to the limit of their competence. They will see weaknesses in any crash program that deals with material imbalance but ignores such underlying causes as laziness and addiction, squandered opportunities, and lack of character. But only a hard heart and soft mind would slur all victims of poverty as unstable in character and ignore the connection between wide reaches of poverty and adverse environmental conditions, including social injustice.

Countless poor people have, through their own diligence, risen above poverty and overcome their material conditions. To encourage the poor to think of themselves as helpless victims of exploitation, as underprivileged persons for whom a “just” government will sooner or later level the wealth, and to peddle the notion that income should not be tied to work, teaches people to look to others to meet their wants and discourages self-reliance. A generation of coveters will not long distinguish between luxury and necessity, and will demand economic security and equality irrespective of personal initiative or desert. Fortunately, the secular world seems at long last to be recognizing the futility of endless handouts.

Jesus was particularly interested in the outcast and the underprivileged, but he never ignored their need to open their hearts to God. He did not whet man’s desire for material things, or implant equalitarian economic ideals. He gave a depth-definition of poverty, as the Church is called to do, by exposing man’s urgent need of spiritual salvation. Nowhere did he endorse the notion that the poor or the rich are blessed by dollars alone. Never did he advocate a program that simply substitutes a well-fed secularist for a hungry one and leaves man spiritually empty. Wealth has not made good men, and the sharing of it will not make good men. The basic poverty of modern man is moral and spiritual. Unless religious realities fill his heart, he will continue to be dogged by many of the evils that he thinks poverty causes. To equip men to escape these evils is the unique contribution the Church can make. As long as the Church neglects the “cure of souls,” psychiatrists will continue to inherit its neglected task of readjusting the lives of those who have learned the hard way that an abundant life is not found in the multiplication of material things.

In every decade liberal churchmen have had a hit-and-run cause: pacifism, socialism, temperance, integration, and now, poverty. After the achievement of a legislative breakthrough in racial concerns, liberal social strategists designated the removal of poverty as the Church’s next major domestic concern, and the elimination of conventional warfare as the Church’s next major international concern. Their anti-war feelings interestingly enough, are often tempered and sometimes contradicted by their espousal of militant methods of social reform.

Liberal Protestantism appears to be fanning fires of social discontent that the Church will not be able to contain. The reliance on mob pressures, on surprise tactics, and on the capturing of mass media for minority causes, the provocation of counter-measures, the bitterness and resentment these activities stir—all this may explode in revolutionary backlash. The day may well come when, unable to achieve utopia, the disillusioned mobs will blame the churches that encouraged them to look to institutional Protestantism in connection with every unresolved social problem.

The private sector’s failure to become adequately interested in socio-economic interests has led by default to weaker alternatives. Had the private sector done its full duty, extensive government involvement in social matters would have been unnecessary.

But nowhere in the world has private generosity achieved a more remarkable record, in the face of increasing tax burdens, than in the United States. In his book The Generosity of Americans, Arnold C. Marts notes that each year more than $11 billion is voluntarily given to private institutions promoting public good. This “predilection” for solving community problems by private initiative and funds—as M. de Tocqueville characterized it—he considers a fruit of the Christian virtue of “love of man for the sake of God.” Yet evangelical Christians must find still larger ways to stimulate voluntary action. If the present trend to federal compulsion continues, the freedoms that survive may vanish in a night of chaos in the Western world.

Compassion and generosity are inherent in Christian commitment. But let it be candidly admitted that evangelicals have neglected too many legitimate needs. That confession is perhaps the best place to begin in facing the question of Christianity and the social crisis. And the next concern ought to be not what to avoid but what to do in the present hour. Something must be done to help those who lack the means of subsistence.

Not that evangelicals have done nothing. In relief programs and rescue missions they have an impressive record. While their concern has been concentrated more upon the household of faith than upon mankind in general, yet evangelicals have not been unmoved by the multitudes in many lands who lack a roof over their heads and bread for tomorrow. A study of the initiative of evangelical Christians in the provision of orphanages, medical missions, hospitals, and other benevolent enterprises would soon indicate that the face of the Western world would have been notably different without this contribution.

We don’t hold the illusion that a Christian minority alone—taking all Christians together—can by themselves meet the world’s material need. The best effort of the churches in the past has not eliminated poverty, and the multiplying population promises to intensify the problem.

It is hard to criticize the domestic expansion of government welfare programs since such activity is now a deliberate aspect of defense policy abroad. It remains to be proved that this expenditure abroad is a means of preventing Communism. Certainly it has added to the enormous national debt and to the tax burden. Moreover, inflation continues to penalize the thrifty and threatens to reduce to poverty some who once were self-sufficient, and the high taxation necessitated by welfare statism is one factor contributing to inflation.

Evangelical Christians have been at a twofold disadvantage in registering a cooperative social influence. Inside the National Council of Churches, conservative Protestants have repeatedly found themselves outmaneuvered by champions of a political approach that transgresses evangelical concerns, while outside the National Council traditional Protestants do not cooperate effectively in implementing social concern. Is there any alternative to going to conservative churches only to hear the evangel, and to liberal churches only to be reminded of public duty and social concerns? How can evangelicals make a significant contribution, while avoiding the temptation to entangle the institutional church in political affairs?

Here are some desirable steps:

1. Encourage young people to train themselves in the secular fields of economics, political science, and sociology, and to prepare for prominent positions in business and government. Some fundamentalist congregations still need to junk the notion that it is sinful for dedicated young people to enter the social, commercial, and public arenas.

2. Face the challenge of Communism by encouraging the business community to share Western technology and leadership with friendly underdeveloped countries, where foreign divisions could employ nationals and produce merchandise urgently needed by the population.

3. Rise above an anti-Communist motivation to a program that shares with all men irrespective of race or creed the opportunities of responsible freedom as a divine stewardship.

4. Develop rapport between the business community and missionaries abroad so that the latter’s suggestions of special areas of human need will receive consideration.

5. Labor and entrepreneurship are among the factors that make for economic growth. Evangelicals may well sense a new field in developing skills, the lack of which contributes to unemployment.

6. Since economic growth offers the only permanent solution to poverty, and since a highly important factor in economic growth is character, evangelicals can make a special contribution. In view of the unwillingness of some third-generation relief participants to work, evangelicals should expound the Christian view of work, as well as engaging in evangelistic effort that seeks to lift lost men to new life and a new character in Christ. The preaching of honesty, integrity, and generosity—in brief, of the Ten Commendments and the Law of Love—remains one of the main contributions the churches can make to the poverty program.

7. Evangelicals face new opportunities in the realm of benevolence. Because of the paucity of giving to some causes close to the evangelical heart, such as Christian education, some observers doubt that the regenerate in Christendom will respond effectively to broader areas of human need. But evangelical churchgoers are among the most generous people on earth. Many are blessed with more than subsistence needs, and even with abundance. They are ready to share with those in need, and in this sharing to witness to a providential God and to a Saviour who in leaving the riches of glory became poor for our sake. A new emphasis on giving as an expression of spiritual concern and material sharing could point the way to a larger outreach in every city and village across the land.

Can evangelicals join ranks in transdenominational effort to meet pressing needs on an area basis? Can they together find a way to manifest biblical compassion as dramatically superior to economic revolution?

Farewell To Mr. Johnson

Smooth tailwinds and turbulent headwinds characterized the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson as President of the United States.

On the tailwind side, he had as much congressional support for his programs during his first months in office as any president could reasonably expect. This support gave him a great opportunity, and he used it to secure the enactment of a huge volume of social legislation.

On the headwind side was the war in Viet Nam. It was Mr. Johnson’s undoing.

Not for many years will we have enough of the facts to assess accurately the overall effectiveness of the nation’s thirty-sixth president. It could turn out that his Viet Nam stand was his greatest achievement, while the plethora of domestic legislation that grew out of his desire for immediate economic and social salvation was more than the nation could digest.

On the Viet Nam imbroglio, however, there is special reason to reserve judgment on Mr. Johnson, though one winces to recall the lack of candor and the integrity gap that marked his campaign as the peace candidate in 1964. Every president makes decisions on the basis of information supplied by his aides. Perhaps they failed him in their estimate of the military situation. Who would ever have supposed that the Communist resistance could drag on so long?

To Mr. Johnson’s credit, it must be said that through such decisions as keeping most of the Kennedy cabinet he provided a sense of stability when the nation needed it most. He was also an exemplary family man and faithful churchgoer, though if he had sensitivity and concern for the nation’s moral decline he failed to give leadership in arresting it. He acted unwaveringly in what he thought was important, and he doubtless made decisions based on his convictions. All of us, whatever our political leanings, owe him gratitude for his loyal service to the country. We wish him well in his retirement years.

Peace, Prayer, And The Presidency

High over the ocean the occupants of an aprocryphal jetliner were told by their pilot that one of the engines had failed. “Well, we’d better start praying,” said a passenger. And an alarmed seatmate asked, “Do you think it’s that bad?”

Sadly, even Christians tend to think of prayer more often as a rescue operation than as preventive maintenance. The inauguration of a new President is a fitting time to reverse this pattern. Christians dare not neglect their responsibility to intercede for him and for all others in high office. They must not wait until he is in trouble before they drop to their knees in his behalf.

Tennyson wrote that “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” Indeed, the Bible suggests repeatedly that prayer does make a difference. Paul’s inspired exhortation to Timothy to pray for civil authorities carries the implied promise of an effect most relevant to our times: peace.

I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be offered for all men; for sovereigns and all in high office, that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in full observance of religion and high standards of morality. Such prayer is right, and approved by God our Saviour, whose will it is that all men should find salvation and come to know the truth [1 Tim. 2:1–3, NEB].

Why not add the President to your prayer list?

Of Fashions And Fig Leaves

In the beginning, fashion was a mini-business; fig leaves and animal skins were in. After that, styles grew more sophisticated and variously long and short, ornate and plain. Now the circuit is nearly closed; modern Eve often wears little more than updated fig leaves if she obeys fashion’s rule: the barer the better. If the leg is not uncovered to mid-thigh, the midriff is bare. If the dress’s midsection is intact, the top is either plunging or transparent. As for animal skins, which women have long held essential, they’re once again turning up on men; Elizabeth Taylor’s recent birthday gift to her husband was a fur coat.

At least since wicked Queen Jezebel’s painted face, fashions have repeatedly bugged believers. Much of their criticism is well taken; decency is a legitimate demand. But sometimes Christian taboos smack of over-reaction. Some Christian schools in an effort to withstand “worldliness,” have required girls to wear their hair uncut and uncurled. Now that long straight hair is fashionable, one wonders whether short curly hair will become the unworldly alternative.

For the Christian, being fashionable is not necessarily wrong—or right. Good taste and a good appearance are always desirable, and in-vogue styles may even help instigate a winsome witness in some circles. But fashion consciousness must keep its place. Top priority for the well-dressed man or woman goes to the robe of righteousness proffered by Christ and donned in faith. There lies true sartorial splendor.

Mr. Powell And His Colleagues

Adam Clayton Powell, America’s foremost Negro politician-clergyman, is back on Capitol Hill, a member of Congress in good standing. He may be $25,000 poorer and lack the power he once wielded, but he is on hand.

The House has the right to determine whom it will seat, and the courts will later consider Powell’s claim that the earlier refusal of his peers to seat him was illegal. Also unanswered is a question raised by Powell himself and by numerous others. Was action taken against him because of his color? Was there racial discrimination?

It would appear to most objective observers that Powell got no more than he deserved. But if he got what he deserved and others who are equally guilty but white remain unpunished, then he has a right to complain. Justice must be evenhanded. The solution would not have been to let Powell go unpunished; rather, it is to apply the same principles to any other congressmen who have violated the rules of their craft. The best way for the House to answer its critics is to take prompt action against offenders who have not been reprimanded.

The Saturday Evening Post: R.I.P.

The death of a magazine is ambiguous. Despite past contributions, it’s debatable what survives beyond the journalistic grave. This month the grand old Saturday Evening Post announced it would end 147 years of regular publication. For some who remember more than a few of those issues, the news creates a sense of nostalgic sadness. Norman Rockwell covers, sometimes cute or coy but always wholesome and technically accomplished … adventures of Alexander Botts and the Earthworm Tractor Company … Little Joe and Babe … and curly-haired Little Lulu, who for years signaled the end of another issue.

Pondering the slippage from George Horace Lorimer’s heyday, we find two lessons for those of us in magazine work. First, the climate of a nation changes imperceptibly each day. Editors who insulate themselves from this evolution can suddenly discover they are out of touch, then scramble furiously—and too late—to regain contact. Second, a magazine that does not serve its readers first will perish. “Service” doesn’t mean bland reflection of the audience; it often requires a prophetic word, a jarring assemblage of fact and argument. Preoccupied with income problems, the latter-day Post didn’t know whom it was trying to please. Let religious journals, which have similar burdens, take note.

Hiding From The Facts

“My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with the facts.” This pretty well describes the attitude of one group of non-conformists who momentarily caught some attention in the wake of the Apollo 8 moon flight. The Flat Earth Society, based in Dover, England, defiantly reaffirmed its conviction that the earth is flat and is the stationary center of the universe. Confronted with Apollo 8’s photographs of a round earth hurtling through space, this little band of dissenters bravely insists that the pictures are a “fraud, fake, trick, or deceit.”

The same kind of head-in-the-sand fact-dodging was evident in another reaction to the mission. As might be expected, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, professed atheist who helped to do away with devotional exercises in the public schools, exploded in indignation because the astronauts had inflicted on the world the biblical account of creation. She feels that the reading was “not only ill-advised but tragic,” because the Bible is accepted by a minority of persons in the world.

In a unique way the Apollo flight and the Christmas season combined to provide ample evidence that there is a powerful Creator God who loves and cares for men. He has clearly revealed himself for all who care to see. But there are always those who do not wish to be bothered by the facts.

Soviet cosmonaut Titov, upon returning from his flight around the earth, declared that he had not seen God. The crew of Apollo 8 did see him—in the majesty of his creation—and they shared this message with the world (see news, p. 40).

There are those who say there is no God, and there are those who say the earth is flat. Both views are supported by an equal amount of evidence.

Obscenity In The Church

One of the loudest and foulest rallying cries of the New Left has been “freedom of speech”—a euphemism meaning the freedom to inflict vulgar and obscene language upon a helpless public. Under the guise of seeking liberty for all, these radicals would rob the American public of its freedom to live in a decent society.

Now even within the Church there are those who, it seems, have not only embraced the idea that obscenity is an essential part of freedom, but have also begun to bring obscene language into the Church. It is being used in “evangelism,” in “Christian” education publications, and, as unbelievable as it may sound, even in worship.

As a part of the “worship” service at a recent youth conference in Atlanta, Georgia (sponsored by the Presbyterian Church, U.S.), college young people were encouraged to write anything that they pleased (“especially succinct grafitti that expresses how you are feeling or where you think it is this morning”) on large panels at the front of the room. The remainder of the “worship” was conducted with vulgar obscenities (so bad that they cannot be reported here) as the focal point.

Is there any conceivable justification for such a blasphemous travesty? Some would say this is all a part of “telling it like it is.” Certainly the Church is to tell it like it is, but too often the Church has forgotten just what it is supposed to be telling. We are to tell of the love of God that sent Christ to the cross so that men might be reconciled to God. We are to tell of a risen Christ who has the power to deliver men from themselves and from their sin. The use of obscenity in presenting this message is totally without justification—biblically, logically, or practically. It deceives men, distorts the Gospel, and dishonors God.

It is especially tragic that obscenity is being not only allowed but welcomed into the Church when the Church has been entrusted with a message and a dynamic to deliver men from the kind of living characterized by obscenity.

The Effects Of Overexposure

The direction of Western culture is clearly indicated by its increasing espousal of sexual license. As much as anything else, this obsession is dragging us downhill.

Those who denounce supposedly out-of-date sexual standards are not challenging the Puritan ethic so much as they are the Word of God. Throughout the Bible sexual sins are marked off as particularly abhorrent. Paul, in admonishing the Ephesians, said of sexual immorality, “Don’t even talk about such things; they are no fit subjects for Christians to talk about” (Eph. 5:3, Phillips).

Today’s man seeks not only to bring sex into the open but to put it on display. Some proponents of sex education in the public schools are especially vocal on this point. They want to take the responsibility for sex education out of the home, where it ideally belongs, and put it in the hands of teachers, some of whom have standards that differ sharply from those of the parents of the children involved. This is in the best interests neither of society nor of the individual.

The Western world is coming alarmingly close to the establishment of sex worship. And the closer we come to the sex practices of ancient, pagan cultures, the closer we come to sharing their oblivion.

The Continuing Tragedy

The Biafran tragedy mounts daily in the number of children who have died or who will suffer from the effects of malnutrition for decades to come. The embattled contestants have been furnished with the implements of war by some of the great powers. Depending on what writer one reads, the blame is attached either to Nigeria or to Biafra in analyses of the political problems at the heart of the conflict. And while we wait for the air to clear and a verdict to be rendered, the children continue to die.

Many of us have contributed money for Biafran relief. Something is being done, even though efforts to get food to the victims have often been stymied. No quick or easy solution to this vexing problem is in sight. We can only hope and pray for a solution as we urge Christians everywhere to do all they can to help the victims of this horrible war.

The Living Christ

Every graveyard and every tombstone is a challenge to the Christian faith. They all ask the same question: Will the dead ever live again? The decisive answer to this question was given when Jesus Christ arose from the dead. But having said this we are immediately confronted with another question: What do we mean by the resurrection of the dead? Is it their memory that persists? Is it spiritual and not physical? If it is physical, can it be demonstrated by the modern empirical method? Is the risen body in any sense a body such as we now know?

Although we do not know all we would like to know about the resurrection of the dead, some things are fairly plain. Normally the dead do not rise again; we do not have with us today people who died and were revivified and now live forever—except one, Jesus Christ. Of him the Bible bears witness that he rose from the dead. And it is on the basis of that testimony that Christians believe in the resurrection of their own bodies at the end of the age, when Christ returns.

The apostles believed that Christ rose from the dead; this is indisputable. Did their belief in his resurrection lead them to make this view a factual affirmation of Christianity, or did the fact of the resurrection cause them to enshrine this teaching in the corpus of the faith? The New Testament witness is unequivocal here. The disciples of Jesus saw in the flesh the one who had died. They touched him, they ate with him, they looked at his wounds, and they listened to his voice. This was not a single-moment experience. Rather, it was repeated again and again for forty days after the disappearance of his body from the tomb. Astonished they were. Deceived they were not. Convinced that Christ had risen, they made it the business of their lives to proclaim this truth, though it brought peril, persecution, or even death. To choose not to believe what the disciples believed and wrote about is one thing. To deny that they believed it, and to doubt that their belief was based upon what they thought to be the fact of the resurrection, is another.

The incarnate Christ was a true human being. As such, he had a body. This body was committed to the grave. And this body rose again and lives forever—a transformed body, and the prototype of what our bodies will be like when we too rise from the dead. The genuineness and integrity of Christianity are indissolubly linked to this historical event. It is hard to see how we can have a credible Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Believing in that resurrection and having faith in the person of Jesus, we can experience the peace of God, enjoy the forgiveness of sins, and wait for our vile bodies to be changed into perfect ones. The living resurrected Christ is, however, the ground of our saving faith.

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