The Unholy Alliance Between Poverty and War

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:29:00 -0600

At the start of our local Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza the National Anthem was played. As the final bars of the song belted out, "... and the home of the brave," several F-16 fighter jets rocketed past just overhead, kicking in their after burners in a display of Air Force might. The crowd roared in exultation. At that moment, I was overcome with a sadness which was hard to shake all through the evening. While I am sure the crowd was not celebrating the weaponry of the aircraft, it was strange to me that the sight of war planes which have been responsible for so many military and civilian deaths would elicit cheering.

Poverty and war co-exist in an unholy alliance. War excites poverty and poverty excites war. The impoverishment of the Rhineland in Germany because of World War I contributed to the rise of Hitler and the launch of World War II. The war in Bosnia created immense poverty and the crisis faced by military action against Palestinians is generating unbelievable desperation. Civil war is the worst. The Liberian civil war created such desperate hunger that the residents of Monrovia consumed all the animals in the city zoo. This kind of poverty, in turn, becomes the combustible mixture which can be leveraged by the right charismatic leader to foment war.

In the current global recession, poverty and war are among the few growth industries. Arms manufacturers and those who make war planes are doing booming business these days. The colossal US military spending over the past eight years was at its highest level in real terms since World War II, most of it done through borrowing. The documentary, Darwin's Nightmare, mentioned in a previous blog, illustrates how the booming arms business is destroying parts of Africa. Poverty and war are symbiotic partners, and the two of them are growing tremendously at the moment.

I'm not one who puts much stock in comparisons which suggest that the amount we have spent on war in the past few years could feed the world six times over, as if we could simply shift money spent on weapons (or fireworks for that matter) to poverty alleviation. While it would be beautiful, realistically money just doesn't move from one place to another like that. Our military expenditures are motivated by fear - sometimes real, sometimes imagined - and you don't free up that kind of money by calculating how much bread you can buy with the cost of an F-16 (though buying bread for the poor might eliminate the need for the F-16 in cases where poverty is fueling hatred). Money simply doesn't shift like that.

I suppose the thing that saddened me was not so much the cost of the F-16s flying overhead as it was the fact that these elaborate and destructive weapons that have played a part in spawning such desperate poverty all over the world would be used as symbols in celebration. The necessity of a military, if such thing is necessary at all, is a necessary evil and should be mourned not celebrated. The sight of such things ought to bring on full-scale grief because they indicate to us that all is not right in this world.

P.S. I eventually shut the comment feature off because I feel as though the dialogue was heading in a direction not intended by the blog post. Comments need to stay on topic and contributed in the spirit of humility and desire to learn together.

Social Justice and Evangelism

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:16:00 -0600

It is probably a frightening oversimplification to claim that when the early Church emphasized Jesus' humanity she spawned great social programs and when she emphasized his deity produced great theology. Understanding and expressing the reality of these two natures existing in a single person inspired the historic schisms. To this day we quibble about the deified power of Christ to save and the incarnational power of Christ to serve, as if they were at odds with one another.

This tension between social justice and evangelism - or Christ as Man and Christ as God - is a bit like the tension between LOVE as verb (I love) and LOVE as noun (my love) - it works great both ways, it just depends on what you are trying to say. In fact the noun and verb can have a symbiotic relationship, "A lover loves." I become the noun, a lover, when I consistently engage the act of loving.

I am grieved when Christians feel like an invitation to accept Jesus is the only way to legitimize the protesting of evil or need to throw an altar call in when feeding the homeless, as if confronting evil or doing good were not enough. Jesus held up a Samaritan as the picture of what it meant to inherit eternal life by fulfilling the law of loving your neighbor (Lk 10) even though he had substantial theological issues with what Samaritans believed (Jn 4). Hating evil and loving justice do not need an evangelistic call in order to become valid. Those actions please Jesus all by themselves.

I am grieved when I meet Christians who have no problem protesting unfair wages for migrant farmers but have no desire to call people into a saving relationship with Jesus. How can we see the kingdom come without inviting others to acknowledge the King? Justice flows from a Judge and answering Jesus' question, "who do you say I am?" matters. A friend of mine, Doug Schaupp, observes that it is easier for him to take someone who is good at evangelism and turn them into a lover of justice than to take a socially active Christian and grow them into a good evangelist. That is sad to me.

Separating social justice and evangelism is like getting married and then not living together. Is it better to have the security of a marriage covenant and never see your spouse, or to live together with no real commitment or promise? I want both. Some of us may be more gifted at the prophetic confrontation of evil systems and structures and others at calling people to say yes to Jesus' invitation to trust him for salvation, but we must remain stoutly committed to both.

Jesus as God and Jesus as man, separating those things is heresy.

Urbana.org Least of These Blog - Justice

The Unholy Alliance Between Poverty and War

Social Justice and Evangelism