Theology for the Masses

The enlightened, autonomous individual – that rugged, Marlboro man who needs nothing but his own cigarettes and skepticism, has fallen on tough times. To some extent Postmodernity is the driving force of decay, falsifying individualism and reviving the idea that humans realize their fundamental identity within community. I’m skeptical of the kind of community ultimately produced under a postmodern worldview, but whatever the case we can at least rejoice in the resurgence of the old axiom, “No man is an island.”

So it is with the Spirit: The Spirit of God is not an autonomous self. The Spirit finds identity within two communities: The community of the Trinity and the community of Ecclesia – the church. Ever longing to bring these two communities into union, the Spirit actively comes forth from the Father in wooing joy, enjoining the church to greater participation in the divine nature.

Trinitarian Community
The biblical picture of the Spirit is a person of divine power and life. Within the Trinitarian community, the Spirit as power and life is the means by which the persons of the Trinity love one another. In Augustinian terms, as cited earlier, the Spirit is the “bond of love” within the Trinitarian dance.

As the bond of love, the Spirit is seen here in terms of relationality. The Spirit relates to and submits to the other persons of the Trinity without losing individuality and identity. The community is not forced upon the Spirit in the sense of overshadowing the Spirit as an individual person. But neither is the individual person of the Spirit the primary concern overriding the community. Within the Trinitarian community there is a dance of love whereby each member sacrificially loves the others and places the others above themselves. This is essential to the nature of God and therefore to the nature of the Spirit.

Community of Ecclesia
The Spirit is not restricted to heavenly relationships, but has willfully and ecstatically chosen to participate in the human community we call the church. “Spirit brings persons together in heaven and on earth, being both the medium of the communication of Jesus with the Father and the medium of our communication with brothers and sisters.”

The Spirit is the bond of love between the church and her savior. She sweeps the church up in her arms, carrying us to the Father, urging us to further sanctification, and all the while liberally lavishing on us the love of our Lord.

Yet the Spirit is not merely a force pushing us to God; the Spirit leads us with a chord of gentleness and compassion, convicting us when we fall behind, bestowing grace on us when we fail, and grieving with us when we mourn.

Furthermore, the relationship of the Spirit to the church is not just vertically oriented. The Spirit moves us to further union with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Spirit works amongst Calvinists and Arminians, Complementarians and Egalitarians precisely because none of these systems can fully conceptualize Ruach. The wind cannot be constrained in our canisters of theological conjecture. I love the way Hauerwas says it, “I don’t have any faith in myself of living a virtuous life; but if I am surrounded by other people who are also formed by the same commitments, then we’ve got a better chance. We need one another to live up to the wonderful invitation we’ve been given to be other than we are.” And this we do through the Spirit of God’s creative work amongst us. By the Spirit we are able to envision alternative ways of being church and thus alternative ways of being ourselves.

The love of the Trinitarian community was perfect before the Creation. Yet that perfect love desired (did not need) someone to share its love with. God created humanity and called out Israel and then the church as the object of His affection. God desires to draw us, through the Spirit, into that Trinitarian dance of love whereby there is mutual submission and communion. The Spirit is the church’s answer to its individualism and self-focus by wooing us to participation in Trinitarian love. We were “created in the first place to reflect God’s own perfection, and [our] destiny is to participate in the very life of God.”

Meredith and I, along with some friends, will be reading through Ronald J. Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. I just finished reading the prologue and wanted to give my initial thoughts.

My skepticism
I get the need. I do, I really do. My problem is the solution, or lack thereof. I see certain programs that are intended to help these people who desperately need it which fail miserably and actually contribute to worsening the problem. Thus I begin the book with a weary and skeptical optimism. I have been wanting a viable solution, not just money or grain dumping. Something that lifts real people out of real problems. I have come to the conclusion that mere aid is not the way to go forward because it robs from the people the ability to create their own economy and wealth, if the aid even gets to the people in need. Additionally, what I don’t want to do is bring the God of materialism along with the God of Christianity to the Other.

If it was only an issue of money – the problems would be solved. I hear the stat of 8 billion needed to provide the whole world with clean water and how Americans spend that amount on ice cream, yogurt, or blue jeans each year. I am highly suspicious that money is all that it would take. Think about the political instability in the regions that need the clean water. I think you will find that in order to create sufficient infrastructures in a country you also need to build sufficient political and societal structures. Thus, the “if only we gave the money we spend on X to Y, then the problem would be solved” line of thinking seems to be insufficient by itself.

Getting into the ins and outs of providing clean water is not the point of this post, nor it is something that I am sufficiently knowledgeable to talk about in depth. The above paragraph is merely a container of my intuitions on the subject and I recognize that may have my facts wrong.

What I do wanna highlight are some of my thoughts going into this book. I will absolutely support something that I think will work, but I won’t just do more of the same saying “Something is better than nothing” the whole while.

Garnering my Interest

With that said, let me sketch out what Sider has to say in the prologue. He begins saying that free market capitalism lifts people out of poverty and that historically γέ Communism has failed miserably. He says,

“Communism’s state ownership and central planning have proved not to work; they are inefficient and totalitarian. Market economies, on the other hand, have produced enormous wealth. [insert stats on Asia's accumulation of wealth since adopting market economies] … When the choice is between communism or democratic capitalism, I support democratic government and market economies. That does not mean, however, that the Bible prescribes either democracy or markets. Nor does it mean ignoring the problems and injustices of today’s market-oriented economies.”

He had me after that series of statements. I had anticipated an argument centered around a return to a sort of apostolic communism ala the book of Acts. I was weary of such an approach because I just don’t see humans administering that effectively on a large scale. He hints that this willingness to adopt practices rooted in market economies is a departure from earlier editions of the book. I have not seen those, so I can’t comment on that. From the on set, Sider seems be open minded to using practices that work in real life, in the here and now. That is a sticking point for me.

How “Biblical” – and is that a bad thing?

Throughout the rest of the prologue, Sider outlines what he plans on doing in the book. The first goal in part one is get the read to recognize that here is a problem that needs to be addressed, namely that there is a large segment of the human population that do not have the means to provide for themselves and their families and there is another segment of the population, Christians, whose 16 trillion combined annual income could go towards meeting those needs. In part 2 Sider plans to argue that God measures societies by how they care for the poorest among them so that his readers may be convicted and moved into action.

He gives a thought-provoking thesis on biblical economic equality:

God wants every person and family to have an [an] equality of economic opportunity, at least to the point of having access to the resources necessary (land, money, education), so that by working responsibly, they can earn a decent living and participate as dignified members of their community.

I am interested in seeing how he builds that up with biblical support. As of right now, it smacks of modern liberal (historical liberal) economic/political thought more than “biblical” thought. I could be wrong, and I hope I am – just my first impressions. I like the idea, that is for sure.

In part three Sider wants to outline the causes for poverty. He says that “some people are poor because of misguided personal choices and others because of unfair systems.” That is a position that can get the left and the right here at home in a room talking! I am pretty much down with what he is saying there, so left me move on to the most interesting section – the fix.

Giving a way ahead

In part four, Sider seems like he will be advocating micro-loans. Micro-loans are small, usually under $500 dollars, loans that are made to poor families in various parts of the world that enable them to improve their standard of living. This is intriguing. Do they really work? Sider certainly thinks they do, giving and example of a family in India that was able to start a small business because of a micro-loan. Sider says that these micro-loans can “improve a family of five’s standard of living by about 50% within one year.”

More importantly, if this idea works, it may be a way to by-pass the problems I have with current aid programs. It bypasses corrupt leaders, empowers the people to improve their own lives, and diminishes the idea that “the white man should go and save the brown man (who obviously cannot save himself)” both ideologically and structurally.

Despite these promises, I still have questions beyond the practicality of micro-loans. Are there other ways we can or should help? Should we as a political entity pressure our government to pressure other governments into creating fair economic and political structures (there is a question I would like to see answered by someone!!!)? Then there are the details on the micro-loans. He mentions usury being charged on these loans. Is that something we affluent Christians should be charging, or is it more an issue of practicality here. How can we have an organization run if it makes no money to pay for creating and sustaining the structure which provides the service?

I look forward to reading this book and hearing the reactions and reflections from my peers on the subject. If anyone that reads this site wants to read with us, I can give you our reading schedule and shelfit page where we will be posting our reactions.