Bono’s Remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast

In case you haven’t already, I think everyone on the planet should hear and read the comments made by Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast last month. Video and transcript included…
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Dikaiosune: and justice

Did you know that the word justice does not appear in some translations of the New Testament? That could be a bit disconcerting for those who understand biblical social justice to be central to Christianity. The reality is that God’s heart for Justice is so integrally linked to His Righteousness that the original greek word used was “dikaiosune,” which has a meaning that fully encompasses the complexity of this characteristic of God, but has always been translated into English as the word “rightousness.” That means that in specific passages we can gain a fuller understanding of them by adding “and justice.”

I invite you to read the NIV passages below with “and justice” added and spend some time reflecting on them in light of our conversations.

Matthew 6:33: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and justice, and all these things will be given to you as well.

2 Cor. 5:21: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness and justice of God.

2 Tim 2:22: Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness and justice, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

1 Peter 2:24: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness and justice; by his wounds you have been healed.

Poverty Statistics

Just a few of the many alarming poverty statistics for you to chew on:

Illinois continues to have the highest child poverty rate in the Midwest and has since 2000. The percentage of children living in poverty is 17.7%.

An Illinois worker would need to work 2.4 full-time jobs at minimum wage ($6.50 per hour in Illinois) to afford a 2-bedroom apartment at the Fair Market Rent price of $802.

Illinois women have higher poverty rates than men. In 2004, 13.3% of women were living in poverty compared to 11.5% of men. Illinois has the worst gender wage inequality of the five most populous states in the nation. In 2004, full-time, year-round working Illinois women had earnings of 69 cents for every dollar men earned. This is happening in spite of the fact that IL passed an equal pay for equal work law a few years ago.

14 million children in the US are living in poverty.

1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty (less than a dollar a day), and half (50%) of the world lives in poverty – as defined by not being able to provide basic necessities.

Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes–one child every five seconds.

According to the UN’s 1997 Human Development Report (HDR) it would cost just $80 billion to provide access to basic social services and income transfers to the poverty-stricken – less than the net wealth of the worlds seven richest men.

$80 billion may sound like a lot, but global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over $950 billion in annual expenditure, as noted by the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI), for 2003.

Americans spend more on cosmetics, $8 billion annually, and Europeans on ice cream, $11 billion, than it is estimated it would cost to provide basic education ($6 billion) or water and sanitation ($9 billion) to the more than 2 billion people worldwide who go without schools and toilets.

We can eliminate poverty, we just simply do not have the moral conviction or political will to do so – not the government or the billionaires, but WE do not seem to.

John14:11-14 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Social Justice and the Global Church

Imagine yourself as part of a church where you are by far the richest person in the community, but most of the others in the congregation have next to nothing — or worse are starving and homeless. Would you be able to just go on living as if your wealth and the reasons you have it are yours alone. What would you do? Would you tell them that you will pray for their situation to improve? Would you give to the person next to you since they’re the ones who happened to make eye contact? Would you divide up your wealth so everyone has the same? Would you use it to create a business so others could make their own way?

Well, you can see where this is going — You are a part of that Church. Being a just church and living a just life requires you to see yourself as a part of the Church global, as if you were sitting in the pew next to “one of the least of these” holding hands, praying and singing to the same Jesus — because that is exactly how God views His community.

1 Corinthians 12:24-26: 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Poverty and Personal Responsibility

“Preach the gospel everyday; if necessary, use words.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi

I think today’s discussion was possibly the strongest and most thought proving yet. We began with a nod to keeping things practical with a focus on poverty. Then, after a brief discussion about difference between urban and extreme poverty, local vs. global issues, and the three faces of poverty: Financial, Cultural, and Spiritual, we began to unpack our thoughts.

From the sufficiency of God, to personal responsibility, to the presence of the Kingdom, I believe I heard the entire room start to apply all of the concepts we have been discussing in this group to tackle such a complex issue in a most balanced and dare I say “holistic” way. I know say it every time but I truly enjoy every minute of it and the health of our discussions gives me great hope for this ministry.

“Indeed our age is, for good or ill, immersed in the social problem.” Reinhold Neibuhr closes his great study on Christian politics and ethics, Moral Man and Immoral Society, in saying:

“…In the task of that redemption the most effective agents will be men who have substituted some new illusions for the abandoned ones. The most important of these illusions is that the collective life of mankind can achieve perfect justice. It is a very valuable illusion for the moment; for justice cannot be approximated if the hope of its perfect realization does not generate a sublime madness in the soul. Nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and ’spiritual wickedness in high places.’ The illusion is dangerous because it encourages terrible fanaticisms. It must therefore be brought under the control of reason. One can only hope that reason will not destroy it before its work is done.”

I plan to follow this post up soon with some thoughts, stats, and resources on poverty.

The shrewdly practical Randy Frazee

Those of you who attended New Community tonight heard Randy Frazee’s message on “shrewd” stewardship that offered up many poignant and practical ways to serve God and serve others with all that you have. The example he gave about the guy who instead of writing a rent check for a needy couple fixed up a house for them and helped them to eventually buy it would have ranked high on our justice continuum.

Now, if we run Randy’s thought process through a social justice framework - never settling for only compassionate acts, or ever forgetting the “least of these,” but always working with a view towards justice - then we will begin to have the answers we are looking for this week. What are practical daily things each of us can do to begin living “the just life?”

Randy’s knack for these examples is why I believe the work he is doing in developing the neighborhood model has the potential to provide the building blocks for a viable social justice model at Willow Creek and churches everywhere.

Some thoughts on the Church and government.

“He who converts his neighbor has preformed the most practical Christian-political act of all.” ~ C.S. Lewis

I am loving the dialog in the previous comments and I hope it keeps going…there’s certainly much to discuss and unpack with the group. I have a few thoughts inspired by some of the comments that I’d like to put out there:

I would agree that the mission of the Church is not one of developing social strategies to make America function, to supply theories of governmental legitimacy, or even to suggest strategies for social betterment. Rather, the Church is to become a polity that has the character to survive as a truthful society. The Church does not exist to provide an ethos for democracy or any other form of social organization, but stands as an alternative to every nation, witnessing to the kind of social life possible for those that have been formed by their new life in Christ – the “new humanity.” A nation cannot approximate any uniquely Christian standard and perhaps in a fallen world can only hope to realize the principles of justice (much less love or self-sacrifice). Christian ideals can never be achieved by social and political policies, but that can’t stop the Church from living as if the world was as it should/will be.

However, that is not to say that Christians don’t have a responsibility to affect positive change in any way available to them. Thankfully, the United States is not Rome or some immovable “other entity”– by God’s design we in particular have been given remarkable opportunity to participate in government and have an added responsibility to make the most of the opportunities that democracy provides – our government provides tools too powerful to pass up. We are as much the body politic as anyone else and because political democracy allows the individual citizen to impact society (for better or worse) the Christian has a duty to utilize the tools of democracy in order to facilitate the ministry of the Church and protect the weak and the needy (i.e. justice). Even though politics are not the Christian’s primary responsibility, political democracy provides opportunities to effect change for the betterment of society that Christians simply must not waste.

I also find all of this energy around the theology behind government and institutional solutions to our responsibilities for justice and interesting response to a call for daily practical solutions that each of us can live by.

“It is not enough for the Church to be engaged with the State in healing social ills, though this is important at times. But when the world can turn around and see a group of God’s people exhibiting substantial healing in the area of human relationships in their present life, then the world will take notice. Each groups of Christians is, as it were, a pilot plant, showing that something can be done in the present situation, if only we begin in the right way.” ~ Francis Schaeffer, The God who is There