Re-Post of NY Times Op-Ed Piece about International Relief work and Global Missions

This op-ed piece was just too good to not repost. I will be honest with you, I think it is going to make some people uncomfortable. It made me a little bit uncomfortable, but as Christians, I think we are called to live with a little discomfort. Enjoy!

Learning From the Sin of Sodom
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published in the New York Times: February 27, 2010

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?

“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

The prayer of the children

My senior year of high school back in 1995-1996, I made the all-state choir. I had to go through a series of multiple auditions to make the choir. Then they sent me the music and I practiced, practiced, practiced. We all met together on a Thursday and rehearsed for two days before performing a concert on Saturday. This was a great experience.

One of the songs that the men from the group sang at the concert was a song called "The Prayer of the Children." It literally brought the entire auditorium to tears.

I hadn't thought about this song in some time. As I was reflecting and praying about Haiti and the devastation there, this song popped back into my head. I did a YouTube search to see if it had been sung by any other groups, and sure enough it was all over the place.

I picked this group's arrangement because it was closest to what I sang in high school. Listen to the song and read through the lyrics as a prayer of and for the children in Haiti and around the world.



Can you hear the prayer of the children on bended knee,
In the shadow of an unknown room?
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry,
Turning heavenward toward the light.
Crying, Who will help me to see the morning light of one more day?
But if I should die before I wake,
I pray my soul to take?

Can you feel the hearts of the children
Aching for home, for something of their very own?
Reaching hands with nothing to hold on to,
But hope for a better day.
Crying, Who will help me to feel the love again in my own land?
But if unknown roads lead away from home,
Give me loving arms, away from harm.

Can you hear the voice of the children
Softly pleading for silence in their shattered world?
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
Blood of the innocent on their hands.
Crying, Jesus, help me to feel the sun again upon my face.
For when darkness clears I know youre near,
Bringing peace again.

Dali cuje te sve djecje molitve?
Can you hear the prayer of the children?

Haiti and Psalm 23

As I was preparing a bible study during the week the earthquake hit Haiti, I began to think about verses that were relevant to the situation there. Psalm 23 kept coming to mind, and I kept dismissing it. Everyone knows Psalm 23 and in many circles it has become so commonplace or people have become so accustomed to it that it is almost trite. People can recite it from memory, but it has lost much of its significance because of it overuse. However going back and exploring the verse in light of the desolation in Haiti brought new meaning to it for me and my bible study.

Contrasting the images of devastation on the television and internet with the prayers and singing you heard in the background was truly a living manifestation of Psalm 23. As the Haitian people watched their already difficult world crumble around them and the death toll rose, I saw the valley of the shadow of death there. And yet the Haitian people sought consolation in God, despite losing their homes, their family members and their sense of safety, they knew that God’s rod and staff would bring them comfort and that they would eventually return to green pastures and still waters.

Their sense of hope in the midst of chaos demonstrated through their songs, prayers and interviews truly embodies Psalm 23 and brought it back to life for me.