Justice - Stewardship

Resources for learning
by Paul Grant

"Stewardship" is often used differently in the church as in the rest of the English-speaking world. We have reduced the meaning of this powerful concept to christianese for donations.

But stewardship is one of the central components of the Christian life, and it's about the whole life, not just the pocket-book. In fact, if our lives are not dedicated to stewardship, our tithing and money management will be empty.

Most of the following concepts come from the book of the week, Scott Rodin's Stewards in the Kingdom: A Theology of Life in all its Fullness. Very rare is the book that so wonderfully combines deep spiritual insight and passion with pragmatic advice for daily living; a year after reading it, I am still growing in my understanding of Rodin's book.

Stewardship, Rodin argues, is a meaningless concept without the prior understanding of what it means to be a steward itself. The bible starts human history with Adam and Eve appointed stewards of Eden, which meant so much more than eating to their hearts' content: the were instructed to Name, and to Cultivate. To name, of course, is God's delegation of authority to humans. As anyone with a college-level course in evolution, biology, or genetics can attest, taxonomy is one part understanding the world, and one part the history of science. That is, as scientists over the last 150 years have named and classified nature, they have ordered it according to their own minds and worldviews; the continuing problems with the boundaries between species is merely one example

For whatever reason God saw fit, he instructed us to name and to cultivate the world - to live partly in, and partly apart from the world. It may be argued that most of human discontent in history stems from this both/and quality of being set into, and apart from, unthinking nature.

Why does this matter at all?

In the same way that carpooling is not sufficient to stop global warming, putting more money in the offering pan will never end third world starvation. Stewardship, properly understood, is inseperable from Justice. It is the editors' hope that the articles and books below will spur urbana.org readers to fruitful dialogue and reflection on Stewardship and Justice. As always, feel free to Contact us with your feedback; we are in the process of developing a new kind of forum for this purpose.

Articles

Listing of Articles on Money
Dozens of Articles on Several Topics.

Feature on Money and Stewardship

Acknowledging Christ in a Suffering World (Urbana 81)
Unless you and I commit ourselves to concrete plans for increasing our giving, I'm afraid God will come one day and find that we have all died from suffocating luxury.

The Middle Class and Urban Mission
Reconciliation in Three Dimensions
Living in the Inner City
The Middle Class and Urban Mission

Bible Studies

Wholesome Care

Books

Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life
Henry Nouwen

Organic Faith: A Call to Authentic Christianity
Ron Mitchell