From Radical:
So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church. (David Platt, Radical, pg. 111)
Ouch. We are quick to condemn sexual immorality, whether extra-marital sex or homosexuality but boy when it comes to something that hits a little closer to our affluent middle-class values, we seem to clam up. The Bible is every bit as harsh and unequivocal in its condemnation of ignoring the poor as it is on sexual immorality but we accept one and not the other. The church makes it easy on us, drop a check in the plate and feel like you are doing your part. Then go out to lunch in your nice car and go home to your nice house without a thought to those who are starving all around us and all around the world.
Case in point was something I read about a "megachurch" in my hometown of Toledo celebrating a milestone and making plans to raise additional funds:
...the goal is to raise $4.5 million by 2013 - $1.5 million for each of the two new sites, $500,000 to pay down debt on the West Toledo property, and $1 million to give to local, regional, and Third World ministries.
Give them credit for raising money for unnamed ministries but the real goal is building a bigger empire.
It seems incomprehensible that a reading of the Scriptures would lend itself to multi-million dollar building projects but the sad truth is that much of what we understand as Christianity in America is a social construct more than a Biblical reflection. We turn to the traditions of our culture and fit the Bible in where we can (and sometimes cram it in where we cannot).
I think David Platt raises a troubling and unanswerable question in this paragraph. The sin of ignoring the poor is a very real one and one that is as unacceptable among the followers of Christ as sexual immorality because it is associated with many of the same core sinful attitudes: selfishness, hard heartedness, pride, idolatry. Granted, Christians by and large are very generous when it comes to giving compared to unbelievers but when you look at where those dollars go and how relatively little most Christians give away, it is more than a little shameful. Being a little better than unbelievers is hardly something we should hang our collective hats on. Why then is it so easy to stand behind a pulpit and rail against sexual promiscuity and sexual deviancy but seemingly so difficult to address poverty and Christian responsibility to the poor? Perhaps, as David suggests, because one is a comfortable topic among our middle-class churches and the other hits a little too close to home and makes people uncomfortable.
The implications for what David is saying, if true and I think they are, raises some very troubling questions for the church.
1 comment:
Arthur,
Troubling indeed. We are called to be set apart, different, peculiar. That sounds rather counter-cultural to me, but the church at large operates on the same principles the world does. We as the body of Christ have to make a conscious decision to be different, both in material matters, but also in other matters, like how we treat others, etc. The Lord has been driving this point home to me lately. At this point the salt has lost its saltiness, and is worth only to be scattered on the ground.
Mark
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