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.

Boring. . . finding joy in the mundane

I stole the text below from my friend's blog, but think it is relevant and right on. Enjoy!

Well today I was in the midday doldrums in need of a spiritual zap. I was working on some tasks that are certainly important to keep things running smoothly, so that is good. But sitting in front of the computer can suck my brain out. The mundane is where we live most of our lives, and in this place we learn to love God, and serve people, even though we don’t always feel like it. This is called having character. Or most days, building character. For this I rejoice, because I love Jesus, and want to learn to love Him more. I want to learn character through the testing pressures of life, including functioning in joy during mundane tasks. I do though fail in this assignment regularly. The stir-crazy revivalist in me wants every moment to be a world changing, earth shaking, devil blasting, holy ghost hoedown. But not every moment of my life fits into that category. As Mike Bickle of the International House of Prayer puts it “We focus on establishing our identity in God as we are faithful to serve in the mundane.”

The Spiritual Practice of Justice

There was a great insert in my Sunday bulletin at Church that I wanted to share with you:

There can be little growth in holiness without growth in a sense of social justice.
-Edward Hays in "A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon"

We must be for the poor not simply a handout but a voice on their behalf where the poor are not heard and their pain is not registered. If we are to really minister, it is up to us to first be transformed ourselves so taht we can then be really transfiguring.
-Joan Chittister from "In the Heart of the Temple: My Spiritual Vision"

Develop a daily cue to remind yourself to practice justice

• Every time you take money out of your wallet, it can be your cue to "practice justice"
• Every time you start your care, it can be your cue to "practice justice"
• Every time you see someone in need, it can be your cue to "practice justice"

Pick your own cue and use that to keep your calling front and center.

Reflections

• Identify an injustice that troubles you. What first made you aware of it? Reflect on one action you have done or can do to combat it.
• Do you think that all people are born with a yearning for justice, or does it have to be taught? Think back to your childhood and recall your most vivid experience of justice or injustice. How can you participate in teaching justice to a younger generation

I really got a lot out of this bulletin insert and wanted to share it with you. There was also a great Psalm that someone quoted this week that I wanted to share in light of this social justice posting and the healthcare debate:

Happy are they who consider the poor and needy! The LORD will deliver them in the time of trouble. The LORD preserves them and keeps them alive, so that they may be happy in the land; he does not hand them over to the will of their enemies. The LORD sustains them on their sickbed and ministers to them in their illness.

God is calling us to take care of the poor and needy and promises to take care of us when we do. We are called to care and to be the hands and feet of God, ministering to the disenfranchised, the hungry, the weak and the sick. Let us not forget.

Another great water org with a very similar message

Yesterday I posted about not getting paralyzed by the scope of the problems we are facing in the world. Today I got an e-mail and a video from another water org that had a very similar message. I really like what they have to say, just at the end, kick over to Healing Waters website instead of the one that they suggest. :)

Enjoy!

"I've been reading a lot lately about the psychology of enormous problems. About how people will always rush to save one child but disconnect when faced with helping thousands of children. "One death is a tragedy, a million - a statistic," we're told.

Non-profits like ours that are addressing enormous problems (a billion people without clean water) are told to make sure we don't scare people off by communicating how big the whole problem is.

Author Seth Godin recently wrote that the problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn't work. He said "Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down. Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies, and you won't get a bigger donation, you'll just get averted eyes."

While all this may be true, it just seems rather boring. Visionless. I believe people want to sign up for something bigger than just one. I did.

There's a proverb in the Bible that says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." People are certainly dying all around us, but could that be because we're terrified to tackle the enormous? Because we don't have the faith to see the entire problem solved?

I can't quite see to a billion people yet, but I'm getting closer.

So in the spirit of solving enormous problems, we want to step it up this September, and serve more people. Then keep going until every single person on the planet has clean and safe drinking water.

We shot a video that explains how we want to do that through the 2009 September campaign. Please watch it, share it and act."

Overwhelmed, paralyzed, what can I do?

The title of this post captures the sentiment that I have felt at times about issues of social justice, global poverty, starvation, the water crisis and other tough stuff that tugs at my heart strings.

There are so many issues out there, that we can be paralyzed into inaction because we are so overwhelmed by the amount of saddness and suffering around us.

But know that you can make a difference, even little you. In your tiny corner of the world, you can make a difference. I use the starfish parable a lot to describe this:

One morning an elderly man was walking on a beach. A high tide the night before had washed thousands of starfish up on the beach. Now that the tide was back out and the sun was coming up, the starfish were dying in the sun. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up one at a time and throwing them back into the ocean.

Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, "Little boy, what are you doing?"

The youth responded without looking up, "I'm trying to save these starfish, sir."

The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?"

Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish into the water, said, "It will make a difference to that one!"

Find your starfish in your own little corner of the world. For me, it is safe drinking water in Latin America. For my wife, it is teaching in urban schools. For a friend of mine, it is working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters on her time off. Each one of us knows we can't fix all the world's problems, but we each work in our own corner of the world "making a difference to that one."

The video below has a cool spin on this too (and is also pretty critical of "reality TV" which is one of my pet peeves):

Guest Blogger: Sermon on "Appalling Acts of Radical Compassion"

My friend Paul Sundberg, who is a Lutheran Pastor, gave a sermon last Sunday that is worthy of reposting and publication. It is about choices, and the compassion with which we should be approaching choices in our lives and in the world. Enjoy!

As for Me (Sermon by Paul Sundberg preached on 8/24/09)

Appalling Acts of Radical Compassion

Joshua 24.1-2a, 14-18, Psalm 34.15-22 Ephesians 6.10-20 John 6.56-69

Choices are a part of life: some are really easy:
Tostitos and salsa or Ruffles and dip?
Chocolate or Vanilla?
Mariners or Yankees?
Ford or Toyota?
Boxers or briefs?
More or less?

But some choices are anything but simple. Some appeal to our need to be right; some bring joy to some and grief to others. And that means that they are the kind of choices that demand that we be genuine in our faith: genuine in the way Paul means it when he writes to the divided congregation in Corinth. He does not demand that they get it right, he calls them to be genuine – which he then goes on to describe as love.

I don’t like talking about choice from the pulpit. The worship band folks from our 9:00am service will tell you that whenever I see the word choice in the lyrics of the songs they sing, I write new lyrics. I’m no fan of choice theology, (it too easily leads to the idea that salvation and righteousness are up to me) yet I have come to grudgingly accept, as I have read the Bible over the last 37 years (as student, teacher, pastor and repentant believer), that just as light is both a wave and a particle – it depends on what you’re looking for – so faith is pure gift and choice.

Besides, with today’s reading I can’t avoid it. “Choose,” Joshua says to the assembled leaders and elders as he and Aaron’s son are about to die and a change of generations is about to take place. “Choose between the lesser gods of convenience and comfort or God who wrestles with us, leads us into physical and spiritual wildernesses, journeys and battles, who calls us into constant repentance and forgiveness, radical generosity and compassion, and hospitality to angels and saints, strangers and sinners.

He’s just echoing his mentor Moses, who said it more simply, “See I have set before you today death or life. Choose Life.

Jesus says it more personally, his teachings and actions are hard to take, and many of his disciples have left. He turn to the twelve and ask, “Do you also want to leave? Will you walk away from me or walk with me?”

But the choice isn’t easy, even when the gift of faith has been given. Jesus comes with appalling acts of radical compassion and love:
-Jesus calls hicks and dreamers to be his disciples
-Turns water to wine for an already inebriated wedding party
-Chases out of the temple those whose presence has been blessed by priests and Levites, but whose greed creates a barrier to those who just want to worship
-Tells a leader of the people he has to start over with a new life and new perspective
-Calls himself the son of God
-Forgives sin
-Heals on the Sabbath
-Calls himself the giver of eternal life
-Claims authority above and beyond Scripture
-Feeds thousands
-Offers himself, his body and blood, for the people

And that’s just the first six chapters of John. He will yet:
-Save the life of the woman caught in adultery and send her away without condemnation
-Shatter the myth of a connection between sin and physical defects and differences
-Heal the blind
-Raise Lazarus
-Let his feet be touched and anointed by a woman who is not related to him
-Wash the feet of his disciples
-Give his peace
-Choose weakness over power and submit to the authorities
-Die on the cross

You who say you love me…what will you choose…do you also want to leave?

It wasn’t and isn’t an easy choice. Our instinct is to return to the things that help us avoid wrestling with issues, that help us put life (ours and everyone else’s) in order, and make life convenient, profitable, and comfortable. The things that make it easy to not look beyond ourselves, not look at the consequences of our choices, not have to honor our interdependence, or confess our own sin first, or give ourselves away. We’d prefer the lesser gods of moral rectitude, self-righteousness, self-service and cultural accommodation.

If our choices are so self-focused, so turned in on ourselves, so demanding of a single mind, how will we turn to the family at the church seeking shelter? How will we continue to dig wells in communities that thirst regardless of the language they speak, the traditions they honor, the religion they follow? How will we speak the gospel of Jesus Christ to a nation that is wracked with anxiety, struggling to recover, and reeling from the divisive language of politicians and pundits and the fearful? How will we be Christ’s Church?

You who say you love me…what will you choose…do you also want to leave? Or, will you realize that these things I do, I do for you, freely in spite of your sin, because of your sin. The wine…it’s for you. Worship…it’s for you. New life…it’s for you. Forgiveness, hope, healing, me…my flesh and blood…my dying…it’s for you. I will let nothing stand in the way of my love for you. I am the Son of God who wrestles with you as you wrestle with life and what it brings. You who say you love me, do you also want to leave, or will you join me in appalling acts of radical compassion?

As for me and my house the only answer can be, “We will serve the Lord. After all, Lord, to whom shall we go? You, you Jesus, have the words of eternal life.”