Longing for a New Movement

I’m dreaming of a different movement – different from the Occupy movement, that blames institutions, corporations and government and ignores the way individuals and consumers played a role in shaping the way our country is today; and different from the Tea Party movement, that says, “I work hard, plan wisely, and balance my budget. If everyone else, including the government, took responsibility and planned ahead like I do, everything would be fine.”

This movement would not blame the wealthy 1% for our problems, assuming that because they have more, they have taken it from others. Nor would it blame the poor, disabled and elderly who receive government benefits and pay little – if any – taxes into the system. It would neither deny that institutions exhibit irresponsibility, greed and depravity on a large scale, nor deny that individuals cause problems for themselves through irresponsibility, greed, and depravity on a small scale.

This movement would not deny that location, upbringing, and the situation one is born into significantly affect their economic well-being throughout life. Nor will it deny that it takes a lot of careful, diligent and strategic effort and planning on someone’s part to take advantage of those opportunities and acquire or maintain privilege, wealth or security.

The movement I dream of would consist of people who believe that they have a serious responsibility to steward their resources, work diligently and strategically, and plan for the future. Its members would have a fierce conviction that they ought to speak prophetically and courageously against the depravity and irresponsibility of the institutions of society, with a constant awareness of the potential for the disadvantaged to be exploited.

This movement would embody a deep compassion and desire for justice and mercy to be administered wisely. The people who make up this movement would have a deep conviction that they must work hard, live responsibly, plan wisely and take full advantage of the opportunities given them so that they can leverage all their resources with overwhelming generosity for the advantage of others. They would have a deep-seated desire to open the door to the opportunities they enjoy to others.

The members of this movement would long to see individual empowerment and a sense of responsibility go viral. And the responsibility would not be that of each person for himself and his own, but the responsibility of each person to exercise his or her gifts and abilities for the good of all those around them. This movement would have a vision that sees beyond redistribution of wealth to redistribution of wisdom and opportunity; a vision that sees beyond hand-outs and allotments to empowerment, investment and lives of constant teaching and mentorship.

Instead of saying “You should have done what I did” or “The people in charge need to do something about this,” this movement would say “Because Christ is in charge, I ought to do something.” The tragedy is not that the government does too little or too much; the problem is not that people are too foolish and lazy and wasteful. The tragedy is that the people of God do too little of living, teaching and modeling justice, generosity and true worship, and do too much of living shortsightedly and selfishly.

Anyone up for starting a movement?

A Semi-Patriotic Prayer

This should have been posted on July 4th. The thoughts were formulating as early as Memorial Day. On every national holiday, I hear prayers of Thanksgiving for our freedom and the bleesings we have. It is not often that I hear repentance over the wrongs we have committed. I believe that God has blessed and used our country in some special ways. I also believe that he has done it in spite of our wrongs, not because of our righteousness. Here’s my attempt at providing balance in a proposed prayer for a church service on a national holiday.


Dear Sovereign God, who rules over all nations, as citizens of the United States today,

We thank you, Father, for how you have allowed our nation to forge the way in freedom of worship, being a leader in breaking the previously long-standing pattern in Western culture of wars between rival Christian movements.

Forgive us, Lord, for the many years of history where black Americans were restricted and excluded from worshipping freely alongside others.

Forgive us, Lord, for how we have fearfully questioned, attacked and persecuted others because their differing beliefs scared us.

We thank you, Father, for the tremendous economic prosperity that has blessed our land for so long.

Forgive us, Lord, for how we have used so much of that wealth to feed our greed and consumerism and at many times remained ambivalent toward the needs of the world around us.

Forgive us, Lord, for claiming that you had given us a “manifest destiny” to acquire land which became ours by military might and aggression, and built wealth and resources by shedding the blood of Native Americans and those of other nations.

Thank you, Father, for the many Americans who have been generous and servant-minded leaders in fighting poverty and serving in global missions, using wisely the wealth you gave them.

Forgive us, Lord, for how we have toppled leaders and manipulated the fate of entire nations for the sake of protecting our economic and political interests.

Thank you, Father, for how America has become a place where people of all races have many opportunities before them.

Forgive us, Lord, for pushing Native Americans onto reservations and setting them on a course toward generational poverty.

Forgive us, Lord, for the many years where we as a nation pushed black Americans to the margins of society, scorned them, and deprived them of opportunities through unjust oppression.

Thank you, Lord, that we have a voice in government affairs and freedom to express our views and ideas.

Forgive us, Lord, for condoning the murder of millions who never got to use their voices, because their lives were taken before they were born.

Forgive us, Lord, for how the founding of our nation included an act of vandalism aboard a British ship and a rebellion against the governing authorities (which the Bible tells us you established) because of our citizen’s outrage over paying taxes (which the Bible tells us to pay).

Thank you, Father, that your blessings are so much greater than we deserve.

A feminist in any other setting

As we draw to a close the discussion of gender issues, I want to step back and take a look at this issue in a global context. Our studies of New Testament culture have shown us a world with inequitable and often oppressive patriarchalism. Some elements of second-temple Judaism gave husbands power to divorce their husbands at a whim, and the Jewish society generally excluded women from significant roles in education, economics and certainly from religion or government. Greco-Roman culture allowed men full authority over all in their household, so that they even had the right to expose their infants so that they would die, and mothers could not stop this action. Women slaves (and men, for that matter) could be sexually exploited by the man who owned them with no recourse. Aristocratic women, however, would be strongly punished if they were unfaithful in the same way, because they were threatening the purity of their husbands’ line of descendants. Greek and Roman philosophers gave various restrictive rulings regarding women like that they should not speak in public or be educated. Into two restrictive patriarchal settings Jesus and Paul spoke and acted in a way that allowed women to play a significant part in their ministries. Thus the New Testament account of Christ’s ministry and the development of the church is sprinkled with the names of women who were prominent and influential in the work of spreading the gospel. Jesus shocks his disciples by speaking with a Samaritan woman. Jesus interacts in a compassionate way towards ritually unclean women who were prostitutes or had “bleeding” issues, ignoring cultural stigma and prejudice to lovingly respond to their needs. Paul greets many women by name in his letters, commending them for their ministries to the saints. They were believers in women’s rights, in spite of the fact that they never caused any dramatic social upheaval to change up the structure (or held any bra-burning events).

It seems that the element of Western culture that incorporated the Christian view of the value of each individual life, as that idea developed over time, has resulted in women in Europe and North America enjoying a higher level of self-determination, right to self-expression, and material prosperity than women have at any other time in history. The battles being fought now for women’s rights in our context are no longer over injustice, but over unfairness.

I find the fact that American women with the same amount of responsibility often get paid less than men annoying, because it’s unfair. It should be addressed. However, I find the fact that women in many developing and under-developed nations get treated like property and abused as sexual objects appalling, because it is unjust.

Rape is a daily, terrifying reality in war-torn regions of Africa such as Darfur and Congo. Many women deal with physical pain and emotional fear because of this. Women struggle to feed their families throughout rural Ethiopia and Kenya, often sacrificing their own food to feed their children and husbands. Meanwhile governments ignore investments in agricultural improvements and play political games that make foreign aid more difficult to receive. A steady flow of heart-wrenching stories come out of Southeast Asia regarding women and girls trapped in sex-slavery. The recent brutal murder in New York city of Muslim wife by a husband seeking to defend his honor reminds us of the repressive reality found in many Muslim nations.

There is a great chasm between the reality of Ne-Yo’s Miss Independent, the woman is free to own a home, pay her bills, and manage her prosperity, and the reality of Delirious’ Mothers of the Night (from the "Kingdom of Comfort" album) who have found no other option but to sell their bodies to feed their children.

I pray that battles for fairness never cause us to forget about battles against injustice. God has made men and women in his image, and he loves them dearly. Let us stand up for the rights of all.